Four distinguished Texas Law alumni have been selected by the law school’s Alumni Association to be recognized for their accomplishments in the legal profession, contributions to their communities, and the practice of law in Texas and beyond.
Each year since 1958, the association has honored the outstanding achievements of its members through the Alumni Awards. The Alumni Association Executive Committee selects recipients from peer nominations for recognition at an annual gala, taking place this year on Sept. 19, 2025.
These are the four honorees (pictured from left):
- Judge Hilda Tagle Knebel ’77, the first Hispanic woman to serve as a federal judge in Texas, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
- Talmage Boston ’78, an attorney, author, and historian, will be honored as the Outstanding Alumnus.
- Elliott Fontenette ’09, managing attorney at the Texas Legal Services Center in Austin, will be recognized with the Distinguished Alumnus for Community Service.
- Paige Duggins-Clay ’17, chief legal analyst at the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) in San Antonio, will receive the Outstanding Young Alumna Award.
Texas Law Alumni Association President Blair Richardson Loocke ’06, who chaired the awards committee, announced the recipients.
“We are proud to recognize these four distinguished alumni for their outstanding professional achievements and service,” says Loocke. “Their work highlights the many ways Texas Law graduates contribute meaningfully to the legal field and to their communities. We look forward to celebrating them this September as part of a longstanding tradition of honoring excellence across our alumni community.”
Justice Chari Kelly ’02, the incoming association president and chair of the nominating committee, will serve as emcee for the event. The school’s Mentor of the Year, who will be announced in August, will also be honored at the event.
Lifetime Achievement
Judge Hilda Tagle Knebel’s groundbreaking career—the first Hispanic female judge in Nueces County and in the state of Texas for a county court in law, as well as the first Latina in Texas to serve as a federal district judge—led to her selection as this year’s Lifetime Achievement award winner. Despite those impressive milestones, Tagle Knebel came from humble beginnings. After becoming a licensed cosmetologist at age 16, she was the first in her family to go to college. She initially dedicated herself to becoming a librarian, earning a master’s degree in that discipline and working for four years before deciding on law school.
Tagle Knebel started her legal career with the Nueces County Attorney’s Office as a felony prosecutor, then served as a state judge on the Nueces County Court and on the 148th District Court. President Bill Clinton nominated Tagle Knebel as U.S. judge for the Southern District of Texas, and she was confirmed by the Senate in 1998. Over the course of her career, she handled cases big and small, including as the federal judge handling sentencing in numerous public corruption matters.
The Supreme Court of Texas appointed Tagle to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards appointed her to the Governor’s Commission for Women. Tagle Knebel received the 2017 Sarah T. Hughes Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.
Outstanding Alumnus Award
Talmage Boston is a renowned trial attorney, author, lecturer, interviewer, and civic leader who promotes Texas Law everywhere he goes. The fact that 23 different alumni nominated Boston for his award is a testament to his exceptional qualifications. He is the organizer and glue behind a group of 20 Texas Law alumni from the Classes of 1978 and 1979 who have become active supporters of the law school. Additionally, in 2017, Boston and classmate Marvin Blum ’78 established the school’s $100,000 Endowed Scholarship in Law.
Boston spent his successful legal career in Dallas, working at multiple firms before becoming a partner at Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton LLP in 2017. In addition to his legal talents, Boston is a prominent baseball historian and was inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. He is the only lawyer to receive Presidential Citations from eight different presidents of the State Bar of Texas. His other honors include the State Bar of Texas Litigation Section’s Luke Soules Award and the Dallas Historical Society’s 2023 History Maker of the Year award.
Distinguished Alumnus for Community Service
Elliott Fontenette has displayed a deep commitment to making legal services and resources available to low-income Texans. A longtime attorney with the Texas Legal Services Center, Fontenette strives to bridge the gap between complex legal systems and the people who need them most by simplifying access to legal tools.
Fontenette’s leadership in legal tech innovation has benefited many aspects of TLSC. Upon joining the organization in 2010, he worked with TexasLawHelp.org—a website that provides free, reliable legal information. In the following decade, the number of visitors to the site increased from 220,000 to more than 2.7 million per year. Fontenette has led many initiatives at TLSC to improve access to justice, including managing the Self-Represented Litigants Project and overseeing the center’s Virtual Court Access Project. Over the nearly 15 years he has been with the center, Fontenette has spoken to more than 10,000 individuals and provided free legal advice to over 4,000 clients.
Outstanding Young Alumna
Coming from a long family tradition of educators, Paige Duggins-Clay has a self-proclaimed passion for social justice and educational equity. She channels that passion into her work as the chief legal analyst at IDRA, where she practices a blend of traditional civil rights, litigation, and education law. With an undergraduate degree in education and experience as a former teacher’s aide, Duggins-Clay brings practical experience to her role, providing a valuable perspective as she counsels educational institutions about a wide array of issues.
Previously, she practiced education law at Husch Blackwell in Austin, providing counsel on litigation, compliance, and investigations. Duggins-Clay also clerked for Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeff Boyd and interned with U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel. Her prior experience also includes fellowships with the Texas Civil Rights Project, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, as well as policy roles with Texas Senators Judith Zaffirini and Wendy Davis. In 2019, she was named a Top 20 Up and Coming Lawyer by the Austin Black Business Journal.
The four alumni represent an impressive group, each of whom has made a meaningful impact in different areas of the law.
“This is a powerhouse slate of awardees,” says Dean Bobby Chesney. “Each of them has accomplished extraordinary things and they have made their law school extremely proud. I can’t wait to honor them in September and for us to share their incredible stories.”
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Read more about the Alumni Awards.