Dentons Sirote is pleased to announce that shareholder Julian Butler was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor’s Class of 2021. Julian joined three other Dentons Sirote lawyers previously inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor: J. Mason Davis, the late Gen. Edward M. Friend Jr., and Edward M. Friend III. We are thrilled to congratulate Julian on this tremendous and well-deserved distinction!
The Academy hosted a ceremony celebrating Julian and other 2020 and 2021 honorees on December 9, 2021, at the Renaissance Hotel and Spa in Montgomery, Alabama. Julian joined other distinguished honorees in the Class of 2021, such as Marillyn Hewson, the former CEO of Lockheed Martin; Lionel Ritchie, the musical icon and Grammy-award-winning recording artist; Lloyd Austin, the U.S. Secretary of Defense; Dr. Selwyn Vickers, Senior Vice President of Medicine and Dean of the School of Medicine at UAB; and the Honorable John England Jr., a former member of the Alabama Supreme Court and former Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge.
In Dentons Sirote’s Huntsville, Alabama, office, Julian has represented clients in civil litigation matters. One of Julian’s primary areas of focus in his practice is local government law, having served as the Madison County Attorney for 35 years, contributing to phenomenal growth in the local community and improving the quality of people’s lives. In 1985, Julian was President of the National Association of County Civil Attorneys.
Additionally, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Education Foundation awarded Julian the 2018 Martin Luther King, Jr., Unity Award “for Outstanding Service in the Area of Human Relations,” and the Huntsville-Madison County Bar Association honored him with the Community Service Award—in 2005 and again in 2012. Active in both the state and local level of the Democratic party throughout his career, Julian was awarded the 1971 Certificate of Merit for “exceptional and extraordinary service in the field of civil rights and political advancement of the community” by the Jefferson County Progressive Democratic Council, which was the first African-American political action group in Alabama.
Julian has been active in the community throughout his life, reinforcing his core belief that lawyers should give back. He has served (i) as the chairman of the Alabama State Bar’s Environmental Law Section, (ii) on the board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation, (iii) on the University of Alabama’s Library Leadership Board, (iv) on the Board of Trustees of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, and (v) as Vice-President of Alabama’s Eleventh Circuit Historical Society. He was also a founding member and Chairman of the Center for Public Law and Service at the University of Alabama.
The Academy of Honor was created by the state of Alabama in 1965 “to bestow honor and recognition upon living Alabamians for their outstanding accomplishments and service.” Prior to 1965, no formal program existed for recognizing living citizens. In the course of the Academy’s history, over 260 members have been elected, recognizing men and women from a wide variety of backgrounds and areas of achievement for their outstanding service to the state and the nation.