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.
Tina M. Tchen, a partner at Buckley Sandler in Chicago, is a recipient of the American Bar Association's 2018 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.
Tchen will receive the award, given annually by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, on Sunday, Aug. 5, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago during the ABA Annual Meeting. In addition to Tchen, the 2018 award recipients include Eileen Letts, Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, Cynthia E. Nance and Patricia Gillette.
"We are honored to recognize this spectacular group of women," said Stephanie Scharf, chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. "We applaud their achievements, knowing that their efforts will inspire a new generation of women lawyers." Previous honorees include U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Tchen earned her bachelor's degree at Harvard University in 1978 and her J.D. at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in 1984.
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 former First Lady Michelle Obama. She is a leader of Buckley Sandler's Workplace Cultural Compliance Practice and guides companies in approaching cultural compliance issues.
Cynthia E. Nance, dean emeritus and director of pro bono and community engagement at the University of Arkansas School of Law, is a recipient of the American Bar Association's 2018 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.
Nance will receive the award, given annually by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, on Sunday, Aug. 5, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago during the ABA Annual Meeting. In addition to Nance, the 2018 award recipients include Eileen Letts, Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, Tina M. Tchen and Patricia Gillette.
"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 Stephanie Scharf, chair of the ABA Commission on Women. Previous honorees include U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Nance 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 member of that group.
Nance is a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, and was elected in November 2016 to its board of governors. She is also an elected member of the American Law Institute and The Labor Law Group, and serves on the Arkansas Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission. Her professional work has been published on numerous occasions by the Iowa Law Review, Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law and many other renowned publications.
Nance earned a bachelor's degree from Chicago State University, a master's degree from University of Iowa College of Business and her juris doctor from the University of Iowa College of Law.
Eileen Letts, a partner and civil trial lawyer at Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP in Chicago, is a recipient of the American Bar Association's 2018 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.
Letts will receive the award, given annually by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, on Sunday, Aug. 5, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago during the ABA Annual Meeting. In addition to Letts, the 2018 award recipients include Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, Cynthia E. Nance, Tina M. Tchen and Patricia Gillette.
"We are honored to recognize this spectacular group of women," said Stephanie Scharf, chair of the ABA Commission. "We applaud their achievements, knowing that their efforts will inspire a new generation of women lawyers." Previous honorees include U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
After earning her bachelor's degree at The Ohio State University and juris doctorate from Chicago-Kent College of Law, Letts served as assistant corporate counsel for the city of Chicago and as a staff attorney on the Chicago Housing Authority. She has been a partner in several law firms, including 26 years at the firm she co-founded, Greene and Letts. She serves on the ABA Advisory Council for the presidential initiative, Achieving Long-Term Careers for Women in Law, and co-chairs the ABA Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
In 2015, Letts was asked to co-chair then-ABA president Paulette Brown's Diversity & Inclusion 360 Commission and was asked to examine the state of the profession as it pertained to diversity and inclusion and create a plan to solve the issues they discovered. Letts led the Commission to develop training videos on implicit bias, pass policies on diversity and create the National Pipeline Diversity Initiatives Directory, a platform built to help students achieve their dreams of a career in law.
Patricia Gillette, a sought-after speaker on gender diversity and equality and a full-time neutral for Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, Inc., is a recipient of the American Bar Association's 2018 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.
Gillette will receive the award, given annually by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, on Sunday, Aug. 5, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago during the ABA Annual Meeting. In addition to Gillette, the 2018 award recipients include Eileen Letts, Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, Cynthia E. Nance and Tina M. Tchen.
"We are honored to recognize this spectacular group of women," said Stephanie Scharf, chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. "We applaud their achievements, knowing that their efforts will inspire a new generation of women lawyers." Previous honorees include U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Throughout Gillette's 40 years of practicing law she held many leadership positions, including heading the Personnel Advice Section of the legal department at Bank of America, leading Heller Ehrman LLP's Labor and Employment Practice Group, chairing the Women's Affinity Group for Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe LLP and co-founding the Opt-In Project, a nationwide initiative designed to redefine the structure of law firms to reflect the new generation of lawyers.
Gillette has been a member of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, the ABA's Gender Equity Task Force and co-chair of the Bar Association of San Francisco's No Glass Ceiling Initiative. Upon her retirement in 2016, Gillette was invited to join Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services (JAMS) as a full-time neutral to mediate employment related cases.
Gillette earned a bachelor's degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles and graduated cum laude from University of San Francisco School of Law.
Published: Thu, Jul 19, 2018
