College of Law Alumni Honored with American Inns of Court Awards

Congratulations to Loyola University New Orleans College of Law alumni Hon. Ivan Lemelle, JD '74 and Kristen Lee, '12, JD '15, who have been awarded prestigious honors from the American Inns of Court. The awards will be presented at the American Inns of Court Celebration of Excellence Dinner at the Supreme Court of the United States in October.

The American Inns of Court is an association of lawyers, judges, and other legal professionals from all levels and backgrounds who share a passion for professional excellence. The American Inns of Court promotes the highest-level of professionalism, ethics, civility, and excellence in the legal profession and the judiciary through mentoring relationships.

Judge Lemelle will receive the prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court A. Sherman Christensen Award, which recognizes a member who has provided distinguished, exceptional, and significant leadership to the American Inns of Court movement at the local, state, or national level.

Judge Lemelle currently serves as senior U.S. district court judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana. A 1974 alumnus of the College of Law, he was an Earl Warren Scholar and a NAACP Legal Defense Fund scholarship recipient. He is a two-time Law Alumnus of the Year awardee by Loyola's Advocacy Center's moot court program and has also served as an adjunct professor at the College of Law and as president for Loyola's St. Thomas More Inn of Court.

Kristen Lee will receive the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Professional Service. This award is given to an American Inn of Court member in practice for ten or fewer years for excellence in public interest or pro bono activities. The award honors a member for exemplary service to honor Justice O'Connor as a paragon of service while exemplifying legal excellence, civility, ethics and professionalism.

Lee currently serves as liaison counsel for the Louisiana Supreme Court, Office of the Judicial Administrator. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in political science in 2012 and currently serves on the school's Young Alumni Board. In 2018, she was recognized as the 2018 Young Alumna of the Year.

During her time at the College of Law, Lee served on the Honor Board, was a member of the Black Law Students Association's AP Tureaud Chapter, worked as a student practitioner in the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic's criminal defense section, and participated in the school's trial advocacy program. She also studied abroad with the College of Law's summer legal studies programs in Greece and Austria.