CHICAGO, April 27, 2023 —The American Bar Association Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section will honor Ellie Jurado-Nieves, vice president and assistant general counsel for regulatory and legislative affairs at the Guardian Life Insurance Company, with its Liberty Achievement Award during the TIPS & YLD Section Conference, May 3-6, in New York City. The award celebrates lawyers and judges who have spent their careers actively promoting diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.
Sponsored by Thomson Reuters, the award will be presented during the TIPS Welcome & Liberty Achievement Award Reception from 6-7:30 p.m. on May 3, at the Marriott Marquis in New York.
Jurado-Nieves has played a key role in diversity and inclusion efforts at Guardian, serving as a founding member of the company’s inaugural diversity council that established a companywide diversity strategy focused on embedding diversity practices into human capital management, culture and programs. She also established and served as chair of the company’s first employee resource group, the Women’s Leadership Network, to drive the development of programs to build the next generation of leaders at Guardian. The WLN has grown to over 400 members, including a chapter in India. She is the immediate past Diversity Strategy Partner for Guardian’s Law Department where she launched various programs to increase diversity, including programming with Guardian’s retained law firms to partner with and encourage the development of lawyers from diverse backgrounds assigned to Guardian matters.
As former president of the New York Puerto Rican Bar Association, Jurado-Nieves served on the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Latina Commission and has facilitated workshops on executive presence during the HNBA’s Latina Leadership Academy for the past four years. Her commitment to diversity extends beyond the workplace and the legal profession. She is on the faculty of the American Management Association where she teaches several women’s leadership development and diversity and inclusion courses. She also hosts her own podcast, Leadership Strategies for Women, which was ranked by Feedspot as one of the best 25 women’s leadership podcasts in 2022.
“Thomson Reuters is honored to work with the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section and proud to support this important award,” said Laura Clayton McDonnell, president of the Corporates business segment at Thomson Reuters. “It’s a privilege to recognize Ellie Jurado-Nieves for her career-long dedication to championing diversity efforts in the legal profession and beyond.”
The ABA Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section unites plaintiff, defense, insurance and corporate counsel to advance the civil justice system. TIPS is a national source of expertise in tort, trial and insurance practice and brings lawyers together to share information and speak out on issues of importance. The section has over 10,000 members and more than 30 general committees that focus on substantive and procedural matters in areas across the broad spectrum of civil law and practice. For more information about the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section visit the TIPS website, www.americanbar.org/tips.
The ABA is the largest voluntary association of lawyers 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.