Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowBy Bryssa Helton
Something particularly special happened at the 2025 IndyBar Installation Breakfast and Leadership Celebration. Julie Armstrong was presented with one of the state’s top awards: the Sagamore of the Wabash. This esteemed honor comes from the 2024 Indiana Governor, Eric J. Holcomb.
“When I started at IndyBar in 1991 I really felt like I landed in a community where I could belong. Though, to ultimately get the opportunity to work as Executive Director gave me huge imposter syndrome. I’m just me, then and now. I’m still swimming hard to not let you all and the members down. I think only my husband knew that I had set the Sagamore as the career goal I never thought I’d reach.”
Lee Christie, 2025 IndyBar President, suggested that the words of IndyBar members may express appreciation and gratitude best:
“During my days as an officer of IndyBar every national meeting of Bar leaders someone would tell me that Julie Armstrong was the rockstar of bar association executive leadership. When I became an officer of IndyBar I was particularly impressed by Julie’s approach to strategic planning. She realized that bar presidents would come and go a year at a time, while planning of programming and member services was ongoing. Julie has shown an amazing ability to navigate and encourage the varying personalities and strengths and weaknesses of each year’s leaders.”
– John C. Trimble, Lewis Wagner LLP, 2015 IndyBar President
“How fitting that Julie would be awarded the Sagamore of the Wabash! A Sagamore is ‘a great [woman] among the tribe to whom the true chief would look for wisdom and advice.’ If the tribe is the Indianapolis legal community, there isn’t an IndyBar President, Board Member, or any engaged lawyer that hasn’t sought out and benefited from Julie’s sound advice and friendship. Her support ripples throughout the legal community, helping lawyers become better, thereby providing better service to their clients. Thanks and congratulations to Julie for her many years of dedicated service. I am proud to call her friend.”
– Hon. Jane Magnus Stinson, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, IndyBar Board Member
“Julie Armstrong’s recognition with a Sagamore Award is well deserved. IndyBar is active, committed to outreach and community engagement, and a wonderful partner to the courts. Congratulations, Julie! Thank you for your service to Indiana.”
– Chief Justice Loretta Rush, Indiana Supreme Court
“Julie has taken a rather inconsequential bar association and, under her guidance, she has transformed it into a nationally acclaimed association. When I looked around the room at this year’s attendees at our Installation Breakfast, I saw more young attorneys, law students, and women than ever before. They were there because they value their affiliation with this association. That’s one tangible result of the “Armstrong” years. I have had the benefit of spending a lot of time with Julie traveling on IndyBar business, on family vacations, and sharing special personal occasions, such as her daughter’s beautiful wedding. She is a woman of the highest ethical standards, a trustworthy and reliable friend, and one of the warmest friendliest people I know. She is a pillar of the Indianapolis community, as evidenced by the recent award of the Sagamore of the Wabash.”
– Hon. Robyn L. Moberly, Retired, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana, 2016 IndyBar President
In Julie’s message of gratitude, she left us all with one final comment: “Whatever ideas I have had or how much I’ve loved the legal community wouldn’t matter without a full team of talented staff and volunteers. If it weren’t for the many team members that I’ve had a chance to work with over the years, IndyBar would be a fraction of what it’s become.”
Congratulations, Julie! This award is incredibly deserved.•
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.