South Texas College of Law Houston (STCL Houston) will honor esteemed Houston litigator Mary-Olga Lovett ’93 with its Distinguished Alumni Award — the highest award presented by the law school’s Alumni Association — Sept. 28 at its 2021 Alumni Association Annual Luncheon at Hotel ZaZa-Houston Museum District.
The law school’s Distinguished Alumni Award acknowledges outstanding civic contribution to the community and significant leadership to South Texas College of Law Houston and to the legal profession. A sixth-generation Texan and a member of STCL Houston’s board of directors, Lovett is senior vice president of Greenberg Traurig LLP, with operational responsibilities for the firm’s Texas offices, and she serves as a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.
She is a proven first-chair trial lawyer who concentrates her practice in intellectual property and commercial and complex litigation. Lovett has served as national trial counsel for Fortune 500 companies in a broad range of industries, including entertainment, software, hardware, energy, hedge funds and financial institutions, health care, oilfield services, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and automotive components.
“STCL Houston has a reputation for graduating exceptional lawyers,” said Michael F. Barry, law school president and dean. “Mo Lovett has demonstrated outstanding skills in the courtroom and in a senior leadership role at one the more respected law firms in the country. She is a trusted advisor and a true business partner, and she epitomizes the profession of attorney and counselor at law. We are proud to call her one of our own.”
In response to this prestigious recognition, Lovett said: “It is the honor of my professional life to be recognized by my alma mater, the oldest law school in Houston, and the place where all my dreams as a young law student were nurtured and developed. South Texas College of Law Houston, which U.S. News & World Report has consistently recognized as having the best trial advocacy program in the country, has for decades produced great trial lawyers. I am privileged to bear witness to the fact that today, STCL Houston produces great lawyers in so many disciplines: mergers and acquisitions, real estate, private equity, tax law, estate planning, family law and criminal law. The friendships I made in law school are lifelong ones, and the skills I developed there have served me well in courtrooms across the country. I am grateful for this recognition and look forward to watching as South Texas College of Law Houston’s graduates conquer new frontiers.”
Lovett has been recognized among The Best Lawyers in America in commercial litigation since 2012, she currently is listed as one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Texas and one of the Top 100 Attorneys in Houston by Super Lawyers Magazine/Texas Monthly, and she was named among the Top 100 Lawyers in Texas in 2016. In 2017, she was named Best in patent by Euromoney’s Guide to the Leading Women in Business Law.
Licensed in Texas and New York, Lovett is a 14-year member and Senior Life Fellow of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the qualifications for which are a minimum of 20 first-chair jury trials to verdict and peer election. While in law school, Lovett was the first person to hold the national titles in moot court for both the National Appellate Advocacy Competition (American Bar Association) and the National Moot Court Competition (Association of the Bar of the City of New York/American College of Trial Lawyers).
In addition to a law degree, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Stephen F. Austin University.
