Pauline Schneider, who served as the Section Council’s Chair from 2003 to 2004, is the 2016 recipient of the Robert J. Kutak Award. Ms. Schneider has been involved in numerous bar and law-related activities and organizations. She previously served as both secretary and president of the District of Columbia Bar and a member of its board of governors. She served as a representative of the District of Columbia Bar in the ABA House of Delegates (HOD) and represented the Section as its HOD delegate for six years. She also served as a member and chair of the Accreditation Committee.
Additionally, Ms. Schneider is a former member of the ABA Board of Governors where she chaired its Executive Compensation Committee and served on its executive committee. She has served as a member of the ABA Nominating Committee, its Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, and chaired the Standing Committee on Election Law and the Accreditation Committee.
In Washington, D.C., she currently chairs the Federal Law Enforcement Nominating Commission, created by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to assist in screening applicants for the Federal Court, U.S. Marshal, U.S. Attorney, the U.S. Parole Commission, and executive director of the District’s Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.
Ms. Schneider recently retired from the full time practice of law. While in private practice, she served as counsel to numerous municipal issuers, underwriters, and borrowers of tax exempt and taxable bonds. Prior to her retirement, she was special counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Ballard Spahr LLP and practiced public finance at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Hunton & Williams. Before entering private practice in 1985, Ms. Schneider served in District government for four years and the Carter White House for almost three years.
A 1977 graduate of Yale Law School, Ms. Schneider also earned a master’s degree in urban studies from Howard University and a bachelorof arts degree from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in New Jersey. She also did graduate study in international relations at Syracuse University.
Ms. Schneider is the recipient of numerous awards including the Margaret Brent Women of Achievement Award from the ABA Commission on Women (1999), Woman Lawyer of the Year Award from the Women’s Bar Association (1995), Women Who Shape the Future from the Women’s Legal Defense Fund (1994), Women of Genius Award from Trinity College (2000), President’s Award from the National Association of Women Lawyers (1998), Charlotte E. Ray Award from the Greater Washington Area Chapter of the Women Lawyers Division of the National Bar Association (1999), Woman of Achievement Award from the Anti-Defamation League (2001) and the Outstanding Alumni Award from Rowan University (2001). Each year since 2004, she has been named one of the Best Lawyers in America. She also has been included since 2007 on the annual Washington D.C. Superlawyers list. In 2005 she was named by the Legal Times as one of the “go to” real estate lawyers in the Washington area.
Ms. Schneider will receive the Kutak Award at a reception in her honor on Friday, August 5 at the Park Central Hotel in San Francisco during the ABA Annual Meeting.