ABA President-Elect Nominee Judy Perry Martinez pledged Feb. 5 that with the ABA’s collective voice and help from the leaders of the profession, the ABA “will rise to a new zenith, as it serves its members, defends liberty, and achieves justice.”
Martinez, a New Orleans lawyer who was nominated during the association Midyear Meeting in Vancouver, is currently Of Counsel at Simon, Peragine, Smith and Redfearn. She previously served at the firm from 1982 to 2003, when she left for a position at Northrop Grumman, where she was Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer when she retired from the company in 2015. She spent a year in residence as a Fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard before rejoining the law firm in 2016.
Martinez has held many ABA leadership positions, notably serving as chair of the ABA Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services, chair of the ABA Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence, chair of the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, chair of the Young Lawyers Division, and as lead ABA representative to the United Nations.
She is currently a special advisor to the ABA Center on Innovation and is a member of the House of Delegates, where she has served since 1991.
In her home state of Louisiana, she has received numerous awards, including the Louisiana Bar’s Distinguished Attorney in 2001, Outstanding Young Lawyer in the State of Louisiana in 1990, the Louisiana State Bar Association (LSBA) President’s Award, and a David A. Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award from the LSBA.
Martinez holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of New Orleans and a J.D. from Tulane University.