ABA Commission announces 2021 Margaret Brent honorees

Five women with legal careers spanning nonprofit work, private practice, government, law school leadership and the judiciary will receive the 2021 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession. The award was established in 1991 to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of female lawyers who have achieved professional excellence within their specialty and paved the way for other women.

The Margaret Brent Awards ceremony will be held virtually on Aug. 5 as part of the ABA Annual Meeting.

“These five distinguished women are role models for all women in the legal profession. We honor their achievements and look forward to celebrating with them at the virtual 2021 Margaret Brent Awards ceremony,” said Maureen Mulligan, chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.

Brent honorees are:

• Irma Gonzalez, a mediator with JAMS (formerly known as Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services), and a retired United States district judge for the Southern District of California.

• Joan Haratani, a partner at Morgan Lewis in San Francisco, specializing in mass tort litigations.

• Joyce Hughes, a professor of law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago.

• Pamela Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, serving while on leave as co-director of the Stanford Supreme Court
Litigation Clinic.

• Ellen Rosenblum, Oregon attorney general since 2012.

Previous recipients of the award include U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.