Baylor Graduate Gib Gayle Receives ABA's Lifetime Achievement Award

by Alan Hunt, (254) 710-6271
Houston attorney Gibson Gayle, Jr., a Waco native and graduate of Baylor Law School and Baylor University, has been honored by the American Bar Foundation as a recipient of the foundation's leading lifetime achievement award. The American Bar Foundation is an affiliated organization of the American Bar Association.
Gayle, a former managing partner of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P., Houston, attended Waco public schools and received his undergraduate degree and law degree, summa cum laude, in 1950 from Baylor. He was admitted to practice law in Texas that same year.
He received the 2006 Fellows of the American Bar Foundation's Outstanding Service Award during a recent banquet at the Chicago Hyatt Regency Hotel. The award is presented annually to a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and honors the recipient's adherence to the highest principles and traditions of the legal profession and service to the public.
The foundation honored Gayle for what it termed his "extensive record of service in the legal community" and his "active role in civic leadership."
Baylor Law Dean Brad Toben, who represented Baylor and Baylor Law School at the Chicago banquet, described Gayle as " one who looms so large in the legal profession and in the community." Toben said, " Gib has risen to the top in every endeavor in which he has ever placed himself. His life and career are aptly described in superlatives. This recognition by the Foundation with this highly prestigious award is such a fitting capstone on a remarkable life and career. The best and most deserving -- Gib -- has indeed been identified and recognized. We are so very proud that he is a Baylor lawyer."
A life member of the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates, Gayle has served as secretary of the ABA; president and director of the American Bar Endowment; chair of the Young Lawyers Division; member of the board of editors of the ABA Journal; and Fellow and former member of the board of directors of the American Bar Foundation. Gayle has also been a council member of the International Bar Association; director, president and vice president of the State Bar of Texas; chair of the board of trustees of the Texas Bar Foundation; and president of the Texas Young Lawyers Association.
Until 1991, Gayle was chair of the board of trustees of Baylor College of Medicine and remains a board member. Currently, he is a trustee of M.D. Anderson Foundation and an associate member of The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Board of Visitors. For many years, he was a member of the board of governors of the Harris County Center for the Retarded. Gayle is a life member of the board of directors for the Texas Medical Center, Inc.
In 2004, Gayle was knighted by the French civic organization Légion d'Honneur, regarded in Europe as one of the most prestigious civic honors, for his extraordinary support of the Institute of Transnational Law at the University of Texas School of Law.
Listed in Who's Who in America, Gayle is the recipient of numerous other distinguished awards including the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Baylor University; Outstanding Young Lawyer in Texas Award; the Baylor Lawyer of the Year Award; the Anti-Defamation League's Jurisprudence Award; the Leon Jaworski Award - Houston Bar Association Auxiliary; Humanitarian Award - National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine; and the Dean's Award - University of Houston Law School.
The main reading room in the library at Baylor's Sheila and Walter Umphrey Law Center is named in honor of Gayle and his colleague, Uriel E. Dutton, who is a 1951 Baylor law graduate.