Civil liberties advocate Nadine Strossen to receive ABA Margaret Brent Award

CHICAGO, Aug. 3, 2017 – Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law at New York Law School, is a recipient of the American Bar Association’s 2017 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.

Strossen will receive the award, given annually by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, on Sunday, Aug. 13, at the New York Hilton Midtown during the ABA Annual Meeting in New York. In addition to Strossen, the 2017 award recipients include Judge Lynn Nakamoto, Judge Bernice Bouie Donald, Nancy Duff Campbell and Lauren Stiller Rikleen.

“We are honored to recognize this spectacular group of women. We applaud their achievements, knowing that their efforts will inspire a new generation of women lawyers,” said Michele Coleman Mayes, chair of the ABA Commission on Women. Previous honorees include U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Strossen has practiced, written and lectured extensively in the areas of constitutional law, civil liberties, women’s rights, and international human rights for more than 40 years. She is widely known as a First Amendment scholar and advocate for the freedoms of religion, conscience and speech. From 1991-2008, she served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the first woman to head the organization.

Strossen has made countless presentations at campuses around the country to motivate and inspire young women, conveying to them the importance of breaking into a male-dominated profession and working for public interest causes. Through her guidance and outreach as a professor at New York Law School since 1988, many of her former students and research assistants have secured positions within the legal profession, including civil liberties and human rights organizations.

The ABA Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, established in 1991, honors outstanding women lawyers who have achieved professional excellence in their area of specialty and have actively paved the way to success for others. The award is named for Margaret Brent, the first woman lawyer in America.  Brent arrived in the colonies in 1638, and was involved in 124 court cases in more than eight years, winning every case. In 1648, she formally demanded a vote and voice in the Maryland Assembly, which the governor denied.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is one of the largest voluntary professional membership organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. To review our privacy statement click here. Follow the latest ABA news at www.americanbar.org/news and on Twitter @ABANews.