Court Celebrates Smith Camp’s Life at Memorial Service
More than a year after her passing, friends, family and colleagues attended a memorial service for Laurie Smith Camp.
The service was the first public memorial to honor and celebrate Smith Camp, the first woman appointed to the bench of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, who died in September 2020 at the age of 66.
Smith Camp was “our compatriot in the judge business, our leader as chief judge, our social director every holiday season, our personal counselor, someone who taught us about style by her example, someone who personally monitored and mentored students, staff and lawyers around the state and the country, someone who showed care for us, someone we call ‘friend,’” said Senior Judge Joseph F. Bataillon, one of three speakers asked to share their remembrances of Smith Camp.
Chief Judge Robert F. Rossiter Jr. served as emcee for the memorial service, which was held Nov. 23 at the Hixson-Lied Auditorium at Creighton University.
“As I look around the crowd here, probably 80% of you, if not more, could come up here and tell a story about Judge Smith Camp,” he said. “We considered a semi-open mic, but we’d have been here forever, and that’s a testament to her.”
Retired Judge Mary Gilbride shared her memories of when she first met Smith Camp at a moot court competition at Creighton.
“I remember taking the bench with the most elegant, serene, gracious and brilliant judge that I had ever met,” Gilbride said. “I was more than a little intimidated. And as I prepared for my remarks today, that same sense of awe and intimidation struck me. What could I say that would be equal to the task that would capture the full measure of the person and the spirit of Judge Smith Camp?”
Gilbride noted Smith Camp’s diverse interests, which included the arts, travel, reading and gardening: “Her backyard was beyond compare.”
“She also liked muscle cars and hot yoga,” Gilbride added.
Gilbride also described Smith Camp’s passion for women’s issues and equality between the genders.
“She began questioning the systemic inequity between men and women in education and in the workplace at an early age,” Gilbride said. “As a new law school graduate, she too experienced the gender bias that the women of our generation and the generations of our mothers before us also experienced.”
Gilbride said those experiences shaped Smith Camp as she progressed throughout her career.
“The empowerment and advancement of women in a legal profession were high priorities for Judge Smith Camp as she mentored countless numbers of young women,” Gilbride said. “She was one of the millions of cracks in the glass ceiling, and she encouraged and inspired other women to take a crack at it as well.”
One of those young women was Mary Kathryn Nagle, a partner at Pipestem & Nagle, who clerked for Smith Camp starting in 2008.
“I remember sitting with her during the interview and thinking, ‘I am so intimidated. How can one person be so smart and so direct and so calculating and yet so beautiful and so authentic?’” Nagle said. “Never, ever in my life have I met someone so accomplished and yet so humble.”
Smith Camp herself was the service’s final speaker, by way of her 2013 TEDxOmaha Talk “Wolves and Brownies,” in which she dissects how we instill ethical codes into boys and girls. (Watch the talk at youtu.be/4-vCQX7SwiU.)
Drawing from the history of the Boy Scouts and the Brownies, Smith Camp reflects on how culture shapes the viewpoints of children and the systemic inequity embedded in society.
To honor Smith Camp’s respect for and commitment to Nebraska’s native people, the memorial service opened with a prayer recited by Larry Wright Jr., director of leadership engagement for the National Congress of American Indians and a member of the Ponca tribe.
Wright first spoke in his Native language before repeating the prayer in English: “We’re all related. We all come together. We’re praying together for the betterment of all of our people. We come here today to celebrate Judge Laurie Smith Camp and thank you for bringing her into our lives and making us better for that experience.”
Following the prayer, Camille Metoyer Moten, an Omaha-based singer-songwriter and longtime friend of Smith Camp, performed “American Anthem,” a song first written by songwriter Gene Scheer and first sung by Denyce Graves in 1998 for President Bill Clinton. The version Moten sang came from the soundtrack for Ken Burns’ 2007 documentary “The War.”
Moten then closed the service with a classic rendition of “Over the Rainbow.”
Smith Camp graduated from Stanford University in 1974 and received her Juris Doctor from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 1977.
In 1980, following a brief stint working in the public and private sectors, Smith Camp took a job with the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services as general counsel.
Smith Camp then served as head of the civil rights section for the Nebraska Department of Justice from 1991 to 1995.
Smith Camp was a chief deputy attorney general for criminal matters with the Nebraska Department of Justice from 1995 to 2001, when President George W. Bush nominated her to the federal district court.
Smith Camp assumed senior status in 2018, at which time President Donald J. Trump appointed Brian C. Buescher to the vacated seat.
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