Save the Date for Texas Defender Service’s 2026 Light of Justice Luncheon!
Dear Friends,
Please save the date for Texas Defender Service’s 2026 Light of Justice Luncheon, featuring the Pulitzer-Prize winning author Lawrence Wright. This inspiring event will be held on October 22, 2026 from 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston, Texas. Registration information will be shared soon!
More About the Keynote Speaker, Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright is an award-winning author, journalist, and screenwriter, whose work often focuses on politics, religion, and culture. A staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and author of 11 nonfiction books, Wright is best known for his book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
A longtime Texan, Wright has authored articles and books about the prison industrial complex in the Lone Star state. His forthcoming book, Redemption: Faith, Justice, and Sisterhood on Death Row, offers a powerful and startling account of the unlikely connection between a convent of cloistered nuns and the condemned women on Texas’s death row, raising questions around crime, punishment, faith, and retribution in America.
More About this Year’s Honorees
This year, we are proud to present our Light of Justice Award to pro bono leader Mayer Brown LLP, in recognition of their tireless and compassionate advocacy on behalf of people harmed by the criminal-legal system.
We are also thrilled to honor poet and activist Ian Manuel, author of the book My Time Will Come, who at the age of 14 was sentenced to life in prison and survived 18 years in solitary confinement through his determination and dedication to art.
Because of you, people impacted by mass incarceration have hope, and we can’t wait to celebrate all that you’ve made possible.
With gratitude,
Burke Butler
Executive Director
Texas Defender Service
