Adelfa CallejoPartner
Callejo & Callejo

Adelfa B. Callejo has been a champion of civil rights as long as she can remember. Born on June 10, 1923 in Millett, Texas, of an immigrant Mexican father and a Mexican American mother, she graduated from Cotulla High School in 1939. After a stay in Dallas, she moved to California, where she started her own import-export business, and through it met her husband, William (Bill) F. Callejo, a New Yorker. Their business and education took them to Mexico City and Troy, New York before Adelfa B. Callejo and her husband returned to Dallas. Working as a secretary during the day, she attended night school at SMU, studying simultaneously for her B.A. and J.D. degrees. Adelfa B. Callejo was the first Hispanic woman to graduate from the SMU Dedman School of Law in 1961. Since then, she has been a partner at Callejo and Callejo in Dallas specializing in personal injury, family and criminal law.

A leader of the Hispanic community, Adelfa B. Callejo is a member (and former regional president) of the Hispanic National Bar Association; former director of the State Bar of Texas; founder and past president of the Mexican American Bar Association of Texas; founder of the Mexican American Bar Association of Dallas; and past President of the Dallas County Criminal Bar Association.

Adelfa B. Callejo is also founder and chair of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations; founder of the Commission on Mexican American Affairs; Dallas past co-chair of the Southwest Voter Registration Project; and a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a national institute for policy studies affecting Latino communities.

Adelfa B. Callejo’s list of honors and awards stretches back 45 years. Among them are the LULAC Hispanic Entrepreneurship Award; the Hispanic National Bar Association Juarez-Lincoln Award; the Martin Luther King, Jr. Justice Award; the Dallas Women Lawyers Louise B. Raggio Award; the Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas Lifetime Achievement Award and the Equal Justice Award from Legal Services of North Dallas. In 1996 she was named a Distinguished Alumni of the SMU Dedman School of Law, and on February 3, 2007 she received the 2006-2007 Robert G. Storey Award for Distinguished Achievement. In 2004 she was honored by the Fellows of the Dallas Bar Foundation for her contributions, both legal and civic, to the Dallas community.

Adelfa B. Callejo was honored twice in 2006 for her service and achievements. On March 2, 2006 the SMU Women’s Symposium recognized Adelfa B. Callejo for her decades of service to the Hispanic community, her leadership in the promotion of Hispanic organizations both in and out of the legal profession, and her achievements as a leader in the Dallas community. On May 5, 2006, the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism presented Adelfa B. Callejo with the Sandra Day O’Connor Award, which celebrates the accomplishments of outstanding women lawyers who have not only reached a level of professionalism excellence in their field, but who have actively made the way easier for future women in the profession.

The SMU Dedman School of Law has named the Adelfa Botello Callejo Leadership and Latino Studies Institute in her honor.