The award is named in honor of Patrick A. Nester, of Driftwood, Texas, the Director of the State Bar of Texas Professional Development Program (the name changed to TexasBarCLE in the early 2000’s) 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, creator of a new course, or in this case, dedicating an entire career to enhancing the legal education for lawyers on a state and national level.
Pat Nester is the former deputy executive director of the State Bar and worked in CLE at the State Bar since 1978. He became the part-time executive director of the Texas Bar College in 2001 and of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society in 2013. Pat received his law degree from the University of Texas in 1975, a masters in journalism from the University of Illinois in 1972, and a BA in English from Principia College in 1968. He served in Vietnam with the U.S. Army in 1969 and 1970. Pat considers his working life to be “an invigorating collaboration with hundreds of friends.”
