Boston attorney Kay H. Hodge to receive ABA Robert F. Drinan Award

The American Bar Association Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice will honor Kay H. Hodge, a partner at the Boston law firm of Stoneman, Chandler, & Miller LLP, with its 2023 Father Robert F. Drinan Award for Distinguished Service in an online presentation Thursday, January 26, a week before the ABA Midyear Meeting in New Orleans.

The Father Robert F. Drinan Award for Distinguished Service honors those who have strengthened the section’s mission to provide leadership to the legal profession.

Hodge has built a national reputation as a management-side employment lawyer while serving the legal profession as a bar leader. Her 2007 induction into the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel is a testament to her legal prowess and acumen. Hodge frequently speaks to various attorney and human resources groups and provides training to managers and supervisors in all areas of labor and employment law and supervisory compliance issues.

“Boston, Mass should be proud! This city is the home of two legal icons: Father Robert F. Drinan and Kay H. Hodge,” said Juan R. Thomas, chair of the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice. “Kay embodies everything Father Drinan represented. Kay, like Father Drinan, has dedicated her life to public service, a continued commitment to the legal profession and has been a zealous advocate to advancing the causes of human rights, the rule of law, and civil rights.”

Hodge has been a member of the ABA since 1977. She is a member of the ABA House of Delegates, currently serving as a representative of the Tort, Trial, and Insurance Practice Section. She is currently the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals representative on the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, the management co-chair of the State and Local Bargaining Committee of the Section on Labor and Employment Law and a member of the Awards Committee of the Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division. Her early work in the association includes serving as Massachusetts state delegate to the ABA House of Delegates, the ABA Board of Governors, past chair of the ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity, the president’s Advisory Council on Diversity, the Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice (when it was called Individual Rights and Responsibilities) and the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation.

Past president of the Massachusetts Bar Association and the National Conference of Bar Presidents, Hodge currently serves on the board of directors of several nonprofit entities, including the Greater Boston Legal Services, Boys and Girls Clubs of Metrowest, Inc. and Advocates, Inc., a human services provider of a wide range of mental health, substance abuse and recovery services. She also serves on the Presidential Advisory Committee of Whitman College and the Boston University Law Alumni Association Executive Committee. Her past board service has included the American Arbitration Association, Crossroads Community Foundation, Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Meadville/Lombard Theological School, Newbury College, Starr King School for Ministry and United Way of Tri-County, Inc.

Hodge received one of the 2022 ABA Spirit of Excellence Awards, which celebrates the efforts and accomplishments of lawyers who promote a more racially and ethnically diverse legal profession. The awards are presented to lawyers who excel in their professional settings, personify excellence on the national, state, or local level and have demonstrated a commitment to racial and ethnic diversity in law.
She received her bachelor’s degree from Boston University and her J.D. and LL.M in Taxation from Boston University School of Law.

Thomas added, “Kay’s life, like Father Drinan’s, demonstrates her lifelong commitment to professional excellence, integrity, and service. I suspect Father Drinan is joining the members of CRSJ in honoring this ‘daughter of New England’ and would say, ‘in her, he is well pleased.’”