2011 Mona Salyer Lambird Spotlight Award Recipients Announced

Since 1996 the Spotlight Awards have been given annually to five women who have distinguished themselves in the legal profession and who have lighted the way for other women. In 1998 the award was named to honor the late Mona Salyer Lambird, the first woman president of the Oklahoma Bar Association, and one of the award’s first recipients.

The award is sponsored by the OBA Women in Law Committee. Each year all previous winners nominate and select the current year’s recipients. A plaque bearing the names of all recipients hangs at the Oklahoma Bar Center in Oklahoma City.

The 2011 recipients are:

Gina L. Hendryx

Gina Hendryx is the general counsel for the Oklahoma Bar Association (OBA) and serves as the association’s counsel on other legal matters. She works with the Professional Responsibility Commission and serves as a liaison to the OBA Board of Governors, OBA committees, the courts and other local and national entities concerning lawyer ethics issues.

From 2003 until 2009, Ms. Hendryx served as the OBA’s first ethics counsel fielding questions from OBA members pertaining to ethical dilemmas faced in the day to day practice of law. In addition to the ethics help line, Ms. Hendryx implemented and directed the OBA Discipline Diversion Program, which is designed to provide awareness of ethical obligations and responsibilities.

Ms. Hendryx is a frequent lecturer in the areas of professional responsibility and compliance with ethical standards. She has spoken to numerous private, public and governmental sector groups including state and county bar associations, legal services groups and Judge Advocate General training programs. Ms. Hendryx writes a regular column for the Oklahoma Bar Journal on current issues in the area of professional accountability.

In her personal time, Ms. Hendryx is an avid scuba diver with more than 1,000 logged dives and holds instructor level ratings with several scuba certification agencies.

Patricia G. Parrish

Since 2004 Patricia Parrish has served as an Oklahoma County district judge. She served as the presiding judge in 2009-2010. She previously served as a special judge and prior to her judicial appointment, she practiced civil law with several law firms including Mullins, Hirsch & Parrish; Musser & Bunch; and Linn and Helms.

An accomplished mediator, she has served as a mediator in state and federal court cases and as an arbitrator on insurance issues.

Judge Parrish is a member of the Oklahoma County Bar Association, where she currently serves as vice president. She is a master, William J. Holloway Jr., American Inn of Court, a member of the Oklahoma Trial Judges Association and was co-chair of the OCBA Voices for Children Committee. She has served on the board of directors for the City Rescue Mission and the Downtown Exchange Club for Prevention of Child Abuse. She has also participated in Leadership Oklahoma City. In 2007 she was the recipient of the Journal Record Leadership in Law Award. She was appointed by Gov. Henry to serve on the Adoption Task Force. In 2008 she was inducted into the Hennessey High School Hall of Fame.

Judge Parrish is one of the most highly regarded judges in Oklahoma County. She is always in charge of her courtroom while treating all participants, lawyers and litigants alike, with appropriate civility and respect.

Susie Pritchett (posthumous award)

Until her untimely death this year, Susie Pritchett had served as associate district judge for Kingfisher County from 1994 until her retirement in January 2011. She began her legal career as the first female assistant public defender in Oklahoma County and later as the first female assistant United States attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. She was one of the government lawyers on the Karen Silkwood case and her list of prosecutions reads like the who’s who of the notorious in Oklahoma. She also served as a chief administrative law judge and as a temporary intermediate Court of Criminal Appeals judge.

She was a member of the Kingfisher County Bar Association, where she served as president, and she was a member of the Oklahoma County Bar Association, where she served on the board of directors. She was a member of the National Association of Women Judges, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Inn of Court, American Inns of Court and the Federal Bar Association. For many years Judge Pritchett was elected by her fellow judges to serve on the Oklahoma Judicial Conference Executive Committee and to represent them as a delegate at the OBA annual meetings.

Over the years Judge Pritchett received numerous awards and commendations from organizations including the FBI, IRS, ATF, YWCA and Oklahoma Women’s Hospitality Club.

Susan B. Shields

Susan Shields is an attorney with McAfee & Taft in Oklahoma City, where she is the leader of its tax practice group. Ms. Shields experience and expertise have earned her recognition in The Best Lawyers in America and Oklahoma Super Lawyers, where she has been consistently named to its prestigious “Top 25 Female” and “Top 50 Oklahoma Lawyers” lists. She has also been recognized as Outstanding Pro Bono Lawyer by Legal Aid of Western Oklahoma, received the OBA Earl Sneed Award and was named to the Journal Record’s list of Leadership in Law honorees. Ms. Shields is also a two-time finalist for the Journal Record’s Woman of the Year Award.

Ms. Shields is a frequent lecturer on estate planning and nonprofit issues and serves as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She is currently serving a three-year term as a member of the OBA Board of Governors. For many years she has also served as a Trustee of the Oklahoma Bar Foundation and is currently a member of its Executive Committee.

Ms. Shields is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and a member of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation’s planned giving council. She heads the Central Oklahoma Stanford Alumni Club, is a graduate of Leadership Oklahoma and has served as a board member for numerous community and volunteer boards.

Betty Outhier Williams

Betty Outhier Williams heads the Betty Outhier Williams Law Office in Muskogee. She practices civil litigation with an emphasis in federal and bankruptcy courts. She received her law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1972 and was one of a very few women graduating from an Ivy League university.

She was the first female assistant U.S. attorney in any district of Oklahoma. She also served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District. She served as a Trustee of the Oklahoma Bar Foundation for nine years. The OBF Board of Trustees changed the rules so that she was eligible to serve as president. Ms. Williams served on the OBA Board of Governors and on the Oklahoma Bar Journal Board of Editors. She has twice served as a justice on the Oklahoma Judicial Appeals Tribunal, where she presently serves as vice chief justice. She was a Reginal Heber Smith Fellow in Tulsa.

On the local level, she has been president of the Muskogee County Bar Association and for 20 years has served on the Muskogee County Library Committee. She has twice been voted best attorney in Muskogee and has twice been named as an Oklahoma Super Lawyer.

She is a member of the Defense Research Institute, Oklahoma Association of Defense Counsel, adjunct settlement judge for the Eastern District and is a Fellow of the Council on Litigation Management.