Gardere Awards McCleary Scholarship to SMU’s Rebekah Bailey

PRLog (Press Release) - Apr. 8, 2010 - DALLAS – Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP is proud to announce that it has awarded the Donald C. McCleary Gardere Leadership Scholarship to Rebekah Bailey, a second-year law student at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.

The scholarship is awarded annually to a second-year SMU law student who has demonstrated leadership qualities consistent with the values embraced by Mr. McCleary, a former Gardere managing partner.

Ms. Bailey is in the top 25 percent of her law school class and received the Dean’s Scholarship for law school. She continues to be on the Dean’s List, as she was throughout her undergraduate career at SMU. Among her many activities during her first year at law school, she was an intern at the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, and spent six months as an intern at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Ms. Bailey has competed in and received many moot court and brief writing awards, including Best Advocate Award at the ABA Moot Court Competition in the spring of 2009. She also co-founded and co-led the Cornerstone Kids Weekend Ministry at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Fair Park. This program provides a safe and stable environment for children to play and expands their awareness of their community by taking them on various field trips throughout North Texas.

“Rebekah’s involvement in law school and the community is impressive,” says Gardere managing partner Steve Good. “She embodies the spirit of leadership and community involvement that Don McCleary hoped to inspire. We feel that she is a fitting recipient of this honor.”

Mr. McCleary, who passed away in 1996, served as Gardere’s managing partner from 1991 through 1995. His vision for Gardere included participation in local, state and national public affairs, humanitarian activities and pro bono work. He established many of the community outreach programs that have become a hallmark of the firm, including GardereProud, which honors the military service of firm members and their families, and the Annual Gardere MLK Jr. Oratory Competition, which will celebrate 19 years in 2011.

“He left us before he was ready to go,” Mr. Good says. “But he would be proud of what he inspired in all of us.”

Previous recipients of the McCleary scholarship were Amy Binks Sanderson in 2009 and Ausra Laurusaite-Kromelis in 2008.

Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, an AmLaw 200 firm founded in 1909 and one of the Southwest’s largest full-service law firms, has offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Mexico City. Gardere provides legal services to private and public companies and individuals in areas of government affairs, energy, litigation, corporate, tax, environmental, labor and employment, intellectual property and financial services.