WASHINGTON, June 18, 2018 — The American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession has chosen five women lawyers to receive its 2018 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. The award ceremony luncheon will take place on Sunday, Aug. 5, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago during the ABA Annual Meeting.
The honorees are:
Patricia K. Gillette was a top-rated employment lawyer and litigator for 40 years before resigning her partnership at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in 2015 to pursue her passion as an author and public speaker. Gillette joined Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, Inc. in September 2016, and now mediates employment-related cases. In 2006, Gillette co-founded the Opt-In Project, a nationwide initiative promoting the retention and advancement of women in the workplace. She has been a member on the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and the ABA’s Gender Equity Task Force, as well as co-chair of the Bar Association of San Francisco’s No Glass Ceiling Initiative. In recognition of her work to advance women in the profession, Gillette has received several awards, including the ABA Golden Hammer Award, the California Women Lawyers Association’s Fay Stender Award and the Barristers Association of San Francisco Award of Merit.
Eileen M. Letts is a partner at Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP. Prior to her private practice, Letts served as assistant corporate counsel for the city of Chicago and as a staff attorney on the Chicago Housing Authority. As a young lawyer, Letts served as chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the Chicago Bar Association, the first African-American to hold the position. She serves on the ABA advisory council for the presidential initiative, Achieving Long-Term Careers for Women in Law. During her six years of service to Chicago, Letts represented the city in a number of high-profile cases before joining private practice at Jones Ware & Grenard in the late 1980s. She co-founded Greene and Letts in 1990, and after 26 years, the firm joined forces with Letts’ current firm, Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP, gaining a national presence and new capabilities.
Consuelo B. Marshall is a senior U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. She began her career as a deputy city attorney in Los Angeles, the first woman ever hired as a lawyer by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office. After joining the private practice firm Cochran & Atkins in Los Angeles during the 1960s, she decided to pursue a career on the bench, serving as a juvenile court commissioner and a judge for the Inglewood, Calif., municipal court, through the late 1970s. Marshall was appointed to the United States District Court for the Central District of California in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. In 2001, she became the first woman to serve as chief judge of the Central District of California. She has served on committees for the Ninth Circuit, the Federal Bar Association and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. She is also an active member of the International Association of Women Judges and currently serves on the RAND Institute for Civil Justice Board of Overseers and as a board member of Equal Justice Works.
Cynthia E. Nance is the director of pro bono and community engagement at the University of Arkansas School of Law. In 2006, Nance became the first woman and the first African-American dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law, and the first woman law school dean in the state of Arkansas. She is the Eighth Circuit member of the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary and represents the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section in the House of Delegates. In 2012, the Arkansas Supreme Court appointed Nance to the Arkansas Judges and Lawyers Assistance Committee and she remains a current member of that group. She has been a scholar-in-residence at University of Iowa College of Law and Washington University School of Law. Her professional work has been published by the Iowa Law Review, Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law and many other publications.
Tina M. Tchen is a partner at Buckley Sandler in Chicago. Tchen has successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the state of Illinois and has handled complex civil litigation and enforcement matters both in state and federal courts in Illinois and across the country. Prior to joining Buckley Sandler in 2017, Tchen served as an assistant to President Barack Obama, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, and chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama. She is a leader of Buckley Sandler’s Workplace Cultural Compliance Practice and guides companies in approaching cultural compliance issues.
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.
Previous winners range from small-firm practitioners in Alabama and Alaska to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Winners are selected on the basis of their professional accomplishments and their role in opening doors for other women lawyers.
Stephanie Scharf, chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, said of this year’s Brent winners: “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.”
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