Price High grad Donald Graham honored by center at University of Miami's School of Law
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Donald L. Graham, a U.S. district judge and native of Salisbury, has been selected as the recipient of the eighth annual William M. Hoeveler Award.
Graham was chosen for the honor celebrating ethics, leadership and public service in the legal profession by the University of Miami School of Law’s Center for Ethics and Public Service. The award was presented at a March 25 reception and ceremony.
Graham is a 1967 graduate of Price High School. His mother, Mildred Graham, a retired educator, still resides in Salisbury.
Graham joined the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the U.S. Army after graduating from Ohio State University College of Law, where he received a Best Oralist Award in the Moot Court Program and the Judge Harter Award as the Outstanding Trial Practice Student.
He was discharged from active duty in 1979 and retired from the Army Reserves in 1999 as a lieutenant colonel. He then served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida in Miami.
He went into private practice as a founding partner with the law firm of Raskin & Graham in Miami, where he was engaged in criminal and civil trial practice in state and federal courts throughout the United States. He was appointed a district judge in 1991.
Graham serves as an adjunct instructor in the U.S. Department of Justice Trial Advocacy Program, a lecturer on behalf of the Department of Justice and Department of Commerce in Cebu and Manila, Philippines; in Shenyan, Hangzhou, Xiamen and Shanghai, China; and in Kathmandu, Nepal.
He has also served as a member of the U.S. Advisory Board on the Investigative Capacity of the Department of Defense. Additionally, he is a faculty member for the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School.
Graham is a member of the Ohio, New York and Florida Bars, the 5000 Role Models of Excellence and a member of the Board of Directors of the Performing Arts Center in Miami. He was named one of Miami’s 50 Most Influential Black Business Professionals and a 2008 recipient of the Thurgood Marshall College Fun Award of Excellence.
