Hahnville native wins prestigious Loyola award

By Christine Bordelon
Clarion Herald
 

Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon described herself as a curious middle child whose parents encouraged her to do anything she wanted.

“Just because I was a girl, it didn’t mean I couldn’t do things that were traditionally considered for boys,” she said. “That was important,” in pursuing a law career.  “I really don’t remember wanting to do anything else.”

Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon, a Senior U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana and a Loyola University and law school graduate, was honored Dec. 2 with Loyola University New Orleans’ “Integritas Vitae” award at the university’s annual 1912 Society dinner. The award is bestowed on graduates who live a life of integrity.

Loyola called her a brilliant legal mind who is a “true person for others” was also a changemaker and “profound administrator, making reforms within the court system for the betterment of the people.”

“Judge Lemmon is known widely as a trailblazer, leader and role model,” said Jesuit Father Justin Daffron, Loyola interim president. “Remarkably, she does not seek that recognition – living her life in service to God and to others.”

“I feel very fortunate to be able to join so many luminaries as a recipient of the Integritas Vitae Award,” she said at the ceremony. “This award is a challenge to continue to strive to live up to the Jesuit ideal of integrity for the remainder of my life.”

No obstacle too great

Growing up in Hahnville, her first examples of service to others, integrity and morality came from her paternal grandfather, former sheriff Leon C. Vial Sr., who had a soup kitchen in his front yard; and her maternal grandfather,  who cared for the well-being of trappers he employed along the bayou.

Following in her father James Vial’s footsteps at Loyola University and Loyola College of Law, Lemmon’s ideal of helping others was deepened by the Jesuits. Jesuit Father Louis Twomey, whom she met in high school at the World Sodality Conference at Loyola, opened her eyes to racial injustice as society changed around her in regard to equal rights for Blacks with Brown vs. the Board of Education and Archbishop Joseph Rummel’s opposition to segregation.

“We had an obligation to rethink our culture,” she said.

She counts other Jesuits – Father Bernard Tonnar, who taught her philosophy and led summer Mexico City trips; Father Edward Doyle, who presided over her engagement to her college sweetheart – the future state Supreme Court Justice Harry Lemmon – while in law school at Loyola; and lifelong friend Father Henry Montecino, who married them, baptized their six children and buried her mother – as role models.
 

“Anything positive that can be said about my life and career, I owe to the Jesuits and to Loyola University in particular,” she said. “I have learned virtually everything I know about life, faith, law and community service from my connections to Loyola, whether in class, in chapel or in my friendships with the teachers and priests and friends I encountered here.”

Lemmon said she was one of only two women in her Loyola law school class, which she entered in 1957 at age 19, and was editor of Law Review. Upon law school graduation, Lemmon became the 54th female attorney in Louisiana and practiced family law, adoptions, personal injury and real estate and oil and gas work at her father’s law firm – Vial, Vial and Lemmon – from 1964-81. She saw her father “doing things to help people.”

She remained close to home in Hahnville to be an active mother in her children’s lives – having six children in six years. Her husband also worked for the firm.

“Being involved with their activities was a must,” she said. “Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout mom and my involvement in the community was important in teaching my children to be involved. … It required a lot of focus and organization. I couldn’t have done it without Harry,” with whom she has been married for 61 years.

She was a charter member of the 29th Judicial District Indigent Defender Board and founding president of the St. Charles Parish League of Women Voters by the late 1960s, bringing her 4-year-old son Patrick to meetings.

Lemmon was a partner in her husband’s successful campaigns for the state Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court of Louisiana. She then was approached to run for a vacant judgeship seat on the 29th Judicial Court of Louisiana, serving for 15 years. She was the first woman elected judge in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes. She also served as judge pro tempore for the 23rd Judicial District Court of Ascension, Assumption and St. James Parishes from 1981-82, and the Louisiana Court of Appeal – First Circuit in 1991, serving for five years until President Bill Clinton appointed her to the federal bench in 1996.

Community-, fairness-minded

She built a reputation as a judge with “fairness and compassion” and instituted the Court School, an alternative school for behavior-disordered children in the court system; developed programs for children of incarcerated and addicted parents; and created a zero-tolerance program for children acting violently at school. To better run court programs for troubled youth, Lemmon created a court position and hired an in-house social worker; expanded mental health services; created helpful programs so victims of domestic violence could navigate the system and hired a mental health professional to oversee them. And, she authored books and produced videos for those in these programs.

“I think having the opportunity to understand service to others and to have compassion for others is extremely important in doing your job the right way,” she said. “It takes a lot of sensitivity.”

Countless awards were bestowed along the way: the Grace House Women of Substance Award; the Louisiana Center for Women and Government Hall of Fame; the Achiever’s Award of the New Orleans Women Business Owners’ Association; the American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the United States Fifth Circuit, and the Loyola University Outstanding Alumnus St. Ives Award.

“I credit the influence of the Loyola faculty and staff  for my sensitivity to the needs of others, and the need to do the right thing for the right reason,” Judge Lemmon said. “Receiving this Integritas Vitae award confirms for me in a concrete way that I have lived up to goals I have aspired to during my entire life.”