Teresa Luther, a retired judge from Grand Island and dedicated advocate for equal justice, will be awarded the Robert M. Spire Pro Bono Award by the Nebraska State Bar Association.

Luther is recognized for her work on the Self-Represented Litigation Committee, her support of the Volunteer Lawyers Project and her 24-year legacy as a judge on District Court of Nebraska’s 9th Judicial District Court.

After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Luther joined the AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America program. She went to work in rural Wisconsin through the program.

While working for AmeriCorps, she realized that legal assistance is a crucial component to solving the complex issues, such as poverty, that she was tackling through her work. It was at that time she decided to become a lawyer.

“I decided to go back to law school just a couple of years later,” she said. “That was my incentive. I didn’t have any lawyers in the family. I don’t think I even knew any lawyers.”

With this new motivation, Luther went back to school at University of Nebraska College of Law, where she graduated in 1975. She went on to practice law in Lincoln while also teaching at her alma mater.

For a couple years, she worked as counsel to the Nebraska Legislature’s Judiciary Committee. After five years in Lincoln, she moved her practice to Kearney.

During her time as an attorney, Luther frequently took pro bono cases.

“Some of it was inadvertent – I did it for free because my clients didn’t have the ability to pay, even if that wasn’t the idea going into the service,” Luther said. “But it got to the point where I could take cases when I knew that the client wouldn’t be able to pay.”

In 1994, Luther was appointed to the District Court bench in Hall County. After 24 years on the bench, she retired at the end of 2018.

Over her two decades on the bench, Luther racked up many accomplishments that make her a standout candidate for the Robert M. Spire award. Most notably, though, may be the way that Spire himself shaped the way that Luther presided over her courtroom.

“Robert Spire was an inspiration to many of us,” Luther said. “I remember at some point before I took the bench, there was an article in the paper where he was interviewed. He spoke of his philosophy, and he said to get up early, work hard, correct your mistakes and try to do what is right. I think lawyers and judges and all who have been involved in access to justice issues are following his philosophy of trying to do what is right.”

During her judgeship, Luther served as the vice chair of the Self-Represented Litigation Committee, which works to address the challenges that pro se litigants pose to the courts by making resources more accessible to people who choose to represent themselves.

“We learned that forms were the bedrock for access,” Luther said.  “I always chaired the forms committee. We met for hours and hours every month trying to develop forms that we could put on the Supreme Court website that would help people get into court, have some direction on how to handle themselves once they got there and know what proof would be necessary for the type of case they were doing.”

Retirement hasn’t kept Luther away from her lifelong passion for law. She continued to serve on the forms committee for about a year after retirement and still does some legal work in problem solving court.

Despite her more than 40 years of legal experience, Luther is humble.

She said she hopes only to have left behind a legacy of fairness and respect.

“I didn’t really think about a legacy,” Luther said. “I hope that I was a fair person that allowed all people that came before me to have their say. That they were all treated with dignity and respect.”