The following citation was read and presented during the conferring of an honorary doctorate to The Honorable Lora J. Livingston at the Commencement Exercises for the Class of 2026 on May 20, 2026.
Jurist. Advocate. Trailblazer. Servant of justice. Yours is a life shaped by faith, disciplined by the law, and devoted to the conviction that justice must be more than an ideal. It must be accessible, practical, humane, and available to those whose voices are too often unheard.
After graduating from the UCLA School of Law in 1982, you began your legal career with the Legal Aid Society of Central Texas. That first work was not incidental to your vocation. It revealed the deep pattern of your life: a commitment to those in need, a belief in the dignity of every person, and a determination to help the legal system serve not only the powerful, but the vulnerable and the overlooked.
In 1999, you were sworn in as Judge of the 261st District Court in Travis County, becoming the first African American woman to serve on a district court in Travis County. In that role, you brought to the bench clarity of mind, steadiness of temperament, respect for the law, and compassion for the people whose lives came before the court.
Your colleagues elected you to serve as Local Administrative District Judge for the Travis County Courts, a role you held for nine years. In that work, you helped guide one of the most consequential civic projects in the county鈥檚 legal history: the design and construction of the Travis County Civil and Family Courts Facility. That facility stands not only as a courthouse, but as a public expression of your belief that justice requires both sound institutions and human welcome. You were instrumental in establishing a law library and self help center for self-represented litigants, a center that was dedicated in March of 2026 as the 鈥淟ora J. Livingston Law Library & Self-Help Center.鈥�
Your commitment to access to justice has extended far beyond the courtroom. You have served with the Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation, the Texas Access to Justice Commission, the Texas Center for the Judiciary, the American Bar Association, and many other organizations devoted to legal aid, indigent defense, pro bono service, and the delivery of legal services. Even in retirement, you have continued the work. After leaving the bench in 2022, you served as a Senior Judge and as Interim Director of the Texas Access to Justice Commission. In 2024, you received the Judge Merrill Hartman Pro Bono Judge Award from the State Bar of Texas, recognizing your extraordinary contribution to pro bono service and equal access to justice.
Your legacy also lives in the formation of future lawyers. The Lora J. Livingston Scholarship, created in 2023 by the Travis County Women Lawyers Association Scholarship Fund, now supports University of Texas law students who demonstrate commitment to community, access to justice, pro bono service, public service, and servant leadership.
As a longtime member of St. James鈥� Episcopal Church, and as senior warden during a season when that historically Black congregation was becoming an increasingly multicultural community, you helped lead with wisdom, compassion, humor, accountability, and grace. You have shown that faith need not distort justice in order to inform it, and that the deepest Christian commitments can strengthen a public life marked by fairness, restraint, and courage.
51视频 has been blessed by that same wisdom. Called to the Board of Trustees in 2015, you served during a season of growth, discernment, and institutional transformation. As chair of the Faculty and Education Committee, you helped guide faculty expansion, curriculum revision, and the seminary鈥檚 ongoing commitment to Beloved Community. You helped found and champion the transformative Pauli Murray Scholarship.
Those who know you describe you as a judge who understood power as responsibility, an advocate who understood service as duty, and a Christian who understood justice as a form of love. You have helped people imagine a common life ordered by dignity, fairness, and mercy.
Your good friend and retired 51视频 faculty member, the Rev. William Seth Adams, says of you, 鈥淟ora Livingston is clearly honorable and judicious. But beyond that and before that, she is very good humored, tough minded, insightfully well spoken, thoughtful, a compassionate jurist, a dear friend, devoted to St. James鈥� Episcopal Church in east Austin and to the Seminary. Many years ago, likely in the late 90鈥檚, Lora and I had a take-out lunch together in her chambers at the Court House. It was during my time of pastoral responsibility for St. James鈥�. Over lunch, I asked Lora to serve as the Senior Warden of our parish. After several thoughtful questions, she accepted. I was wonderfully pleased. It was one of many gracious and wise decisions she made in her years on the bench.
In gratitude for your pioneering judicial service, your lifelong commitment to access to justice, your leadership in the Church and civic life, your formation of future lawyers, and your faithful service to 51视频, the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Theological 51视频 is honored to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.