CHICAGO, Aug. 6, 2019 – Kelly M. Dermody, managing partner of the San Francisco office of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, is a recipient of the American Bar Association’s 2019 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.
Dermody will receive the award, given annually by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, at noon on Sunday, Aug. 11, at the Marriott Marquis San Francisco during the ABA Annual Meeting. In addition to Dermody, the 2019 award recipients include UC-Davis law professor Raquel Aldana; Michelle Banks, senior adviser at BarkerGilmore; San Diego Judge Judith McConnell and California Labor Secretary Julie Su.
“These distinguished women have been trailblazers throughout their careers, and they are role models for all women in the legal profession,” said Stephanie Scharf, chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, of this year’s Brent honorees. “The Commission is thrilled to honor and celebrate their outstanding achievements at the 2019 Margaret Brent Awards luncheon.”
Dermody is a nationally recognized advocate in the areas of pay equity, #metoo, and diversity and inclusion, and has prosecuted numerous cases challenging unfair hiring, promotion, compensation and performance systems. She attended Harvard University and earned a law degree from Berkeley Law School, at UC Berkeley. Before joining Lieff Cabraser, she clerked for the Judge John T. Nixon, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
In 2012, Dermody served as president of the Bar Association of San Francisco. She is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and the American Law Institute. She is a past member of the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section governing council, where she also previously served as co-chair of the section’s annual conference, Committee on Diversity in the Legal Profession, and Equal Employment Opportunity Committee.
Dermody has received awards from charitable and civic organizations, including the National Association of Women Judges, the Anti-Defamation League, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, California Rural Legal Assistance, Legal Momentum, Equal Rights Advocates, Centro Legal de la Raza and Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom.
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.
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.