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JOURNAL
EIGHTY-FIVE NEW FELLOWS INDUCTED IN PHOENIX
Eighty-five new Fellows from thirty-eight different states and provinces were inducted at the 2024 Spring Meeting in Phoenix.
At the luncheon preceding their induction, Past President Mike O’Donnell explained to them how they were chosen. And that evening at the Induction Ceremony, Dana Grimes of San Diego addressed the Fellows on behalf of her class of new inductees with the remarks that we have paraphrased here:
Wow, this is a very friendly looking audience - and so well- dressed. I’m a criminal defense attorney so any time I do pub- lic speaking, I’m used to looking into the faces of increasingly tired and hostile jurors. So this is a nice change of pace. But of course, you’re not just a well-dressed audience; you are a very accomplished group. And it is my job here tonight to intro- duce to you the 2024 class of American College of Trial Lawyer Fellows, who with the tremendous support of their loved ones and their mentors, are truly honored to join you in this import- ant and storied College.
These inductees have, through years and careers and using their talents and their energies, supported the most functional branch of democracy in these United States and in the Cana- dian provinces – the judiciary; upholding the Rule of Law and access to the courts. And its my absolute privilege to introduce them to you by way of some personal histories and anecdotes
in an effort to give you a sense of who these trial lawyers are and how and why they found themselves on the paths that led them here to be with you all tonight.
The family stories of these inductees are as touching as they are inspiring. We have an inductee whose father came to the United States from Poland when he was one year old with his parents; the rest of his father’s family having been killed in the Holocaust. Having lived its opposite to the most extreme de- gree, his father was passionately devoted to the Rule of Law and constitutional principles, instilling in our inductee a deep commitment to justice and to individual liberties.
Another inductee grew up in a single-parent home and was sent with his brother to North Carolina to pick tobacco for two summers. They saved the money that they earned picking tobacco and bought lawn equipment and started a small lawn gardening business and were able to help support their family.