Bill of Rights Award
David Barrett
Vice President and General Counsel
Southern California Gas Company
David Barrett is vice president and general counsel for Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), a Sempra regulated California utility.
Previously, Barrett was associate general counsel of gas infrastructure for Sempra. He joined Sempra in 2002 as assistant general counsel of environmental, before becoming assistant general counsel of real estate and environmental for SDG&E. In 2017, Barrett assumed responsibility for litigation related to the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility as assistant general counsel of infrastructure for Sempra.
Prior to joining Sempra, Barrett was a partner and local environmental department chair for Latham & Watkins LLP, a global law firm.
Barrett serves on the board of the Civil Justice Association of California and is a member of the Board of Advisors for Pepperdine Law School. He also serves on the board of the California Restaurant Foundation. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Auburn University and a law degree from Pepperdine University.
Lloyd M. Smith Award
Joseph A. Calabrese
Retired Partner
Latham & Watkins LLP
Joe Calabrese retired from Latham & Watkins LLP in 2022, where he served for many years as the Global Chair of the firm’s leading Entertainment, Sports & Media Practice. In that role at Latham and at his previous firm O’Melveny & Myers, Joe advised clients and industry leaders around the globe in the ever-changing entertainment, sports, and media business for over four decades. He draws on exceptionally broad experience with the evolution of the industry — from the end of the first golden age of television to the advent of the second, through the era of cable television and home video, to innovations of streaming video on demand and over-the-top media services.
He currently serves on the Board of Constitutional Rights Foundation and is the Foundation’s past chair. He also serves on the Executive Board of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the Cornell Law School Advisory Board as well as the Advisory Board of the Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and the Pacific Council on International Policy.
Widely lauded in the legal and industry press as a leading Hollywood entertainment and sports lawyer, Calabrese has also been continually recognized as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California by the Daily Journal and is a recipient of the American Jewish Committee’s Judge Learned Hand Award for outstanding leadership in the legal profession.
Vivian Monroe Award
Leslie Gilbert-Lurie
Author/Lawyer/Human Rights Advocate
Leslie Gilbert-Lurie is an author, lawyer, former television executive, and community leader. She is a member of the International Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, and the Board of Directors of Pacific Council on International Policy.
As a Founding Board Member and past Board Chair of the Alliance for Children’s Rights, Leslie has been a tireless advocate for children’s rights. In further advance of child welfare reform, Gilbert-Lurie served as the Vice-Chair of the Los Angeles Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Welfare.
She also currently serves as a member of the UCLA Foundation Board of Directors, and the Board of Advisors to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and the UCLA School of Law. As a student at UCLA, she was the Student Regent on the Board of Regents of the University of California. She also served for over a decade on the Los Angeles County Board of Education, and was President of the Board for three terms. In 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Leslie to the California State University Board of Trustees.
Gilbert-Lurie’s memoir, Bending Toward the Sun, published by Harper Collins, chronicles her mother's experience in the Holocaust and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. She has spoken in a variety of countries and across the US about the book, the Holocaust, and its implications for the world.
Leslie spent her earlier career as a television executive at NBC, where she oversaw NBC Productions and the comedy division, co-wrote television episodes for Alf and Saved by the Bell, and co-founded an in-house production company, Lurie-Horwits Productions. As a lawyer, Gilbert-Lurie worked at the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg and Tunney, and she served as a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Law Clerk for Judge Harry Pregerson.
