The Patrick A. Nester Outstanding Achievement in CLE Award

The award is named in honor of Patrick A. Nester, of Driftwood, Texas, the Director of the State Bar of Texas Professional Development Program and TexasBarCLE from 1986 to 2000 and again from 2005 to 2016. The award is to honor a Texas attorney for outstanding achievement in CLE as a course director, speaker, author, or creator of a new course.

2023 Recipient – Kevin Dubose

Kevin Dubose always wanted to be a trial lawyer. Until he became one. After 6 years and 25 jury trials, he decided he had had enough. He found himself more suited to a new specialty just gaining recognition and acceptance at the time, and became an appellate lawyer. More than that, he became a leader in the appellate bar, serving as Chair of the Houston Bar Appellate Section, the Chair of the State Bar Appellate Section, and President of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. This year he received the Gregory S. Coleman Appellate Lawyer of the Year Award from the Texas Bar Foundation.

But throughout his career, he always had a passion for teaching. He first taught future lawyers when he was a Teaching Quizmaster in his third year of law school. As a young lawyer he became an adjunct professor of Legal Writing at the University of Houston Law Center, then served as Director of Legal Research & Writing, and later Director of Appellate Advocacy at the UH Law Center.

Kevin’s introduction to the CLE big time came when he was asked to write and speak about writing appellate briefs at the 1988 State Bar Advanced Appellate Course. Thus began a prolific career of  CLE papers and presentations that continues to this day.

Kevin has written and spoken about mainstream appellate topics like brief-writing and oral argument, as well as more obscure topics like motions for rehearing, mandamus, amicus briefs, and briefs not mentioned in the rules. He has presented to trial lawyers about preservation of error, motion practice, and jury charge practice. He has spoken to various lawyer groups about legal writing and legal ethics. He has given presentations about marketing techniques, client relations, and searching for meaning in the practice of law.

Kevin has made CLE presentations to in-house programs for law firms and government agencies; to local bar groups around the state; to state-wide CLE programs sponsored by the State Bar, the Texas Center for Legal Ethics, and most Texas law schools; and at national meetings of the ABA, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

Kevin has participated in CLE presentations as a solo speaker, in panels of 2-5 speakers, in a game-show format, and as an actor in live and recorded skits. He began presenting in the days when visual aids were almost unheard of, bridged to the days when PowerPoint was almost mandatory, to the days of CLE presentations by Zoom. The one thing he has rarely done is to say no to CLE invitations – he can count those on one hand. In contrast, he has said yes over 200 times.