austinbar.org DECEMBER 2024/JANUARY 2025 | VOLUME 33, NUMBER 10
Meet the Austin Bar Foundation Gala Award Winners
David Armbrust, Denise Davis, Austin Kaplan, and Thomas R. Phillips.
D
avid Armbrust, Denise Davis, and Thomas R. Phillips have been named the Austin Bar’s 2025 Distinguished Lawyers, and Austin Kaplan has been named the recipient of the David H. Walter Community Excellence Award. DISTINGUISHED LAWYERS David Armbrust Armbrust & Brown David Armbrust has practiced law in Austin for approximately 48 years. He has been involved in numerous business, real estate, environmental, and public policy issues in the Central Texas area. He presently serves on the Board of the Central Texas
Regional Mobility Authority. He is a former president of the Real Estate Council of Austin, former director of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Austin Association of Builders, Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Colorado River Foundation. David has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America every year since 1983 and has been recognized by Texas Monthly magazine as a “Super Lawyer.” He has received the City of Austin’s Distinguished Award for Community Service, been named “Best in Business – Real Estate” by Austin Business Journal, and received the W. Neal Kocurek Commercial Real Estate Lifetime
Achievement Award. He is a full member of the Urban Land Institute and was actively involved in the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan. David served as a founding member and then director/president of Hill Country Conservancy, a coalition of environmental and business leaders dedicated to preserving the environment through land conservation. He also served as a director on the Brackenridge Hospital Development Council and Greater Austin Economic Development Corporation. David was recognized by the Austin Business Journal in 2023 and 2024 as one of the most influential people in Central Texas. Denise Davis Davis & Kaufman Denise Davis is a native Texan with over 20 years of experience working with members of the Texas Legislature. In addition to lobbying, she has extensive experience in developing and implementing legislative strategy, providing
procedural and parliamentary advice (House and Senate rules), and in drafting complex legislation, administrative rules, legal memoranda, and briefs for clients in both the public and private sectors. Before founding Davis Kaufman PLLC with Lisa Kaufman in 2012, Denise served for over two years as chief of staff to Texas House Speaker Joe R. Straus. Prior to that, Denise served several sessions as House parliamentarian and special counsel to the Texas House of Representatives. Her public service also includes work as general counsel to Lt. Governor William “Bill” Ratliff; director and counsel to the Texas Judicial Council under then-Chief Justice Thomas R. Phillips; general counsel to the Senate Jurisprudence Committee under Sen. Rodney Ellis; legislative counsel for the Texas Legislative Council; and assistant public information/ press officer for Lt. Governor William P. Hobby. Gala Awards continued on page 7.