Judge Andre M. Davis to receive ABA's 2017 John Marshall Award

Judge Andre M. Davis of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is the recipient of the 2017 John Marshall Award, presented by the American Bar Association Judicial Division and the Standing Committee on the American Judicial System.

The ABA established the John Marshall Award in 2001 to recognize individuals who have had a positive national impact on the justice system. It is open to anyone responsible for extraordinary improvement to the administration of justice in the categories of judicial independence, justice system reform or public awareness about the justice system. Past recipients include Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the late former U.S. Sen. Howell Heflin of Alabama and former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

A native of Baltimore, Davis has been a judge for 30 years, starting in the state District Court and Circuit Court in Baltimore from 1987 to 1995. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court by President Bill Clinton in 1995, and to the Court of Appeals by President Barack Obama in 2009. He took senior status in 2014 but maintains an active caseload. He will retire from the appeals court on Aug. 31 to become Baltimore city solicitor.

Davis was dedicated to increasing public awareness of the justice system and promoting judicial reform and independence – in the United States and around the world. From 2003 to 2009, he was a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Committee on International Judicial Relations, and hosted many foreign judicial delegations in Maryland, including groups from Chile, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Russia. He traveled extensively overseas to meet with foreign judges, including trips to Russia, Armenia, Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Swaziland, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Mali and Egypt.

He also made his mark as a teacher of law students and fellow judges. For more than 20 years, Davis was on the faculty of the National Judicial College, helping hundreds of judges throughout the country learn about civil and criminal procedure. He also taught at the University of Maryland School of Law.

Davis has been a leader in many local, state and national organizations. He is former chair of the National Conference of Federal Trial Judges, former president of the executive committee of the Maryland Judicial Conference and a former member of the executive committee of the Appellate Judges Conference. In Baltimore, he was president of the Legal Aid Bureau and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central Maryland.
Davis will receive the John Marshall Award at a luncheon Aug. 11 at the ABA Annual Meeting in New York City. Tickets for the event are $50 per person and may be purchased at http://www.americanbar.org/groups/judicial/events_cle/annual.html.