Chief Judge Pratt, Indiana Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner, cites her father as first great mentor

With her mother and daughter seated next to her Thursday, Chief Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of the U.S. District Court of southern Indiana received Indiana Lawyer’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award.

In accepting her award and delivering a speech at the Indiana Roof Ballroom, Pratt led this year’s group of 36 Leadership in Law honorees. That group included 15 Distinguished Barristers, 15 Up and Coming Attorneys and five Legal Support Stars.

She said she drew inspiration from a variety of people, citing her father, the late defense and civil rights attorney Charles A. Walton, as her first great mentor.

“I knew very early on I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to be a lawyer,” Pratt said.

Pratt was sworn in as the first Black federal judge in Indiana history in 2010, after she was nominated by President Barack Obama to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the  Southern District of Indiana and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

She became the district’s chief judge in 2021 and is the first person of color to hold the post.

In her speech, Pratt attributed her accomplishments to four key factors: her parents, who valued education; great educators; supportive family and friends; and the benefit of exceptional mentors.

She said her mother, Joan Walton, a longtime teacher at Indianapolis Public Schools, taught her everything she needed to know in life and was her biggest supporter.

Pratt also highlighted her daughter, Marion Circuit Court Magistrate Judge Lena Pratt Sanders, and recounted how she initially told her mother she wanted nothing to do with law or politics.

“Look at her now,” Pratt said.

An Indianapolis native, Pratt is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta and received her law degree from Howard University.

She began her legal career at the civil rights law firm of Moss & Walton, and later Walton & Pratt in Indianapolis, where she worked with her father, brother and husband, the now-retired Marion Superior Court Judge Marcel A. Pratt Jr.

Pratt began her judicial career as a master commissioner in Marion Superior Court and was elected as a Marion Superior Court judge in 1996, 2002 and 2008, presiding over about 100 jury trials.

Prior to that, she worked as a part-time public defender, trying more than 50 jury trials.

“The work was rewarding and it gave me invaluable trial experience,” Pratt said.

Judge Webster Brewer provided Pratt an opportunity to sit as pro tem judge in his court and later offered her a position as a part-time public defender in his court.

Brewer also encouraged her to run for judge, Pratt said.

During her time on the Superior Court bench, Pratt also worked with the Annie Casey Foundation and Juvenile Detention Alternatives to Incarceration initiative to reform the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center.

Throughout her career, she has been active in judicial and bar-related organizations.

Pratt also was appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to serve on the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Codes of Conduct, from 2014 to 2021.

And she is a past vice president of the Indianapolis Bar Association and Board of Managers of the Indiana State Bar Association.

Pratt also is well known for mentoring several high school, college, and law school students and currently serves on the Advisory Board of UNCF, Indianapolis.

She is a member of the Judicial Council of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Pratt currently serves on the board of the Federal Judges Association and Marion County Bar Association, and on the Committee on Pattern Civil Jury Instructions of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Pratt noted the Marion County Bar Association was celebrating its 99th year of existence this year.

She encouraged attorneys in attendance to give back to their communities as volunteers and fulfill their pro bono obligations.

“Your pro bono obligations are an imperative and fair price to pay for the privilege of practicing law and I encourage you to perform those services with the same dedication to excellence as to your highest paying clients,” Pratt said.