Adams and Reese attorneys, C. Byron Berry and Lee C. Reid have been selected by New Orleans CityBusiness as members of this year’s “Power Generation,” a group of the most exceptional community and civic leaders under the age of 40 from the Greater New Orleans area.
Berry and Reid will be honored by New Orleans CityBusiness at a luncheon at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans on Friday, March 12, 2004.
C. Byron Berry previously served as an Assistant District Attorney in New Orleans, during which time he conducted a wide-range of complex and high profile criminal investigations and prosecutions. During his tenure, he attained the position of Chief of Narcotics and served as a member of the Violent Offender and Narcotics Strike Force. He has also prosecuted over one hundred felony jury trials and handled hundreds of other criminal matters.
Berry is a partner with the law firm of Adams and Reese LLP. His areas of experience include medical malpractice defense, pharmaceutical drug liability, products liability, toxic tort litigation, general casualty and healthcare fraud/abuse litigation. He also provides general and regulatory advice to and serves as disciplinary counsel for the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners. In that capacity, Berry conducts and supervises state regulatory and disciplinary investigations and proceedings involving various health care professions for the State of Louisiana. He is admitted to practice in all Louisiana State Courts, all Louisiana U.S. District Courts and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Berry has always played a leading role in helping to make the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area a safer place to live, to work and to raise a family. He is the President of the Crimestoppers’ Board of Directors, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to fighting crime, putting criminals in jail, and making our neighborhoods a safer place to live. This anti-crime program provides people in our community with an avenue to anonymously furnish law enforcement with information that leads to arrests and convictions of criminals. Crimestoppers services New Orleans and the surrounding seven parishes of the Metropolitan New Orleans area.
Berry is an active volunteer with the firm’s employee volunteer program, HUGS (Hope, Understanding, Giving and Support) which touches over fifty charities in the Greater New Orleans area. Every Easter, he coordinates the HUGS “Easter Basket” project filling Easter baskets with goodies for children and preparing Easter dinner for 40 needy families throughout the New Orleans area.
Lee C. Reid is an attorney with the law firm of Adams and Reese LLP. He is a member of the Litigation Practice Group. His practice encompasses a wide range of business litigation, regulatory matters, general litigation and transactional work.
Recently, Reid took a leave of absence from Adams and Reese to serve as Special Assistant to the General Counsel of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, where he assisted with the legal aspects of the investigation phase of the Columbia Shuttle Disaster and served as a member of the Columbia Accident Legal Coordinating Team (CALCT). Within days of his employment with NASA, Reid was in the debris search field in Hemphill, Texas with the CALCT assessing the legal situation, formulating timely and workable response plans and meeting with search teams and governmental representatives. At NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., beyond the legal issues that arose daily, Reid helped ensure that the families of the Astronauts received all their entitled and legally available benefits and that the State and local communities that selflessly assisted NASA in the aftermath of the tragedy were adequately compensated for their personal expenditures. Reid also played an important role in the Headquarters Contingency Action Team (HCAT) as its counsel, providing assistance on ever changing legal problems that arose on a daily basis. His work in the HCAT led to a ‘by-name’ appointment to the Return to Flight Implementation Team, where his efforts greatly assisted the Team’s production of the Return to Flight Implementation Plan.
As a result of his efforts at NASA, Reid received the prestigious NASA Astronaut’s Personal Achievement Award, the “Silver Snoopy” for his work in connection with the Columbia Shuttle mishap. The “Silver Snoopy,” of all the Space Flight Awareness awards, best symbolizes the intent and spirit of Space Flight Awareness. It is awarded to individuals for outstanding efforts that contribute to the success of human space flight missions and fewer than 1 percent of the space program workforce receive it annually. The award is always presented by an astronaut because it is the astronauts’ own award for outstanding performance, contributing to flight safety and mission success. Reid’s “Silver Snoopy” was presented by former Astronaut William F. Readdy, NASA’s Associate Administrator for space flight.
Reid has served in various civic organizations. He is a former Vice President of Projects and Secretary/General Counsel of the Young Leadership Council and he currently sits on the YLC’s Board of Directors. Reid is also assisting the organization in its participation in Mayor Nagin’s Care Again Campaign.
Reid is also the project director of the Project Prodigy Summer Music Camp. Project Prodigy, a non-profit, four-week summer music camp, is focused on enriching the musical skills of Orleans Parish public school students in grades four through eight. The camp is held each summer at Nelson Elementary School and lead by an eight person staff of committed professional music instructors. The program is geared toward introducing students in upper elementary grades to the positive aspects of the arts.
Reid has recently been named the youngest member of the Loyola University School of Law Visiting Committee. He also sits on Loyola University’s Alumni Board, where he chairs the Young Alumni Committee and is co-chair of the Community Service Committee.
Pro bono work has also been a large part of Reid’s community service effort. He currently represents three brothers whose mother’s parental rights were terminated by the state. Reid has overseen their foster care and their potential adoptions. These children are still under the care of the state and will require many more hours of legal representation in the years to come.
Aside from this case, Reid has handled numerous adoptions through Adams and Reese’s pro bono project, CA&RE. He is also heavily involved in the firm’s community outreach program, HUGS, where for the past several year’s he has participated in numerous programs.
Reid has also been named a Fellow of Loyola’s Institute of Politics and is a graduate of Metropolitan Area Committee Leadership Forum.
Adams and Reese is a multidisciplinary law firm. With more than 260 lawyers, the firm has offices in New Orleans, LA; Baton Rouge, LA; Birmingham, AL; Houston, TX; Jackson, MS; Mobile, AL; and Washington, D.C.