Justice Catherine D. Kimball: Lagniappe

Chief Justice Kimball has been inducted into the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame, and the LSU Alumni Association Hall of Distinction. She was selected as the Outstanding Alumni of the LSU Law Center in 1999, and is an honorary member of Order of the Coif. She was named the 2006 Distinguished Jurist by the Louisiana Bar Foundation, and was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in 2011.

She had a key role in the reform of the Louisiana juvenile justice system while serving on the Louisiana Juvenile Justice Implementation Committee and the Louisiana Children’s Cabinet. She even started a nonprofit organization, The Sunshine Foundation, to give books on self-esteem to preschool school children after a teacher told her she tried to say a kind word to each student every day because it might be the only kind word the child heard that day.

On the morning of January 10, 2010 Chief Justice Kimball suffered a significant brain stem stroke. Doctors told her that she had been working too many hours everyday for all of her working life. After extensive therapy, she resumed her work as Chief Justice. On January 31, 2013, she retired after 20 years of service on the Louisiana Supreme Court bench.