FORT WORTH, Texas -- Texas A&M University School of Law adjunct professor Mike Ware received the Percy Foreman Lawyer of the Year award from the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (TCDLA). He was honored at the 27th Annual Rusty Duncan Advanced Criminal Law Course. The event was held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, June 12.
Ware was lauded for his recent success obtaining the release of four innocent San Antonio women who had each served over twelve years in prison for a crime they did not commit and have become collectively known as the “San Antonio Four.”
Ware teaches Post-Conviction Actual Innocence Claims at Texas A&M School of Law and is a criminal defense attorney in Fort Worth, Texas. His Aggie Law students benefit from his 30 years of experience in criminal trial, appellate, and post-conviction practice including death penalty cases, in state and federal courts throughout the U.S. Ware has been named a Texas Monthly Super Lawyer as both a defense lawyer and a prosecutor.
Ware devotes innumerable pro bono hours to investigating and litigating claims of actual innocence and serves on the Board of the Innocence Project of Texas.
From 2007 to 2011, Ware headed the Dallas County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit. The unit made national and international news for investigating claims of wrongful convictions and securing the release and exonerations of 15 wrongly convicted, innocent men, some of whom had served more than 25 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. His article, “Dallas County Conviction Integrity Unit and the Importance of Getting it Right the First Time,” was published in the New York Law School Law Review in 2012.
The Rusty Duncan Advanced Criminal Law Course is the premier seminar for the TCDLA and is generally acknowledged as the premier criminal law course in the nation, with more than 800 criminal defense practitioners from around the state in attendance. TCDLA is the largest statewide association of criminal defense lawyers in the country, as well as being the oldest - now celebrating 43 years defending individual freedoms.
Find more information on Ware’s firm.
See the TCDLA award announcement press release.
(Photos courtesy of The Law Office of Michael L. Ware)