ABA announces four recipients of 2019 Margaret Brent Award

The 2019 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award recipients include Barker Gilmore senior adviser Michelle Banks; UC-Davis law professor Raquel Aldana; Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein managing partner Kelly M. Dermody; 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.”

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.

Michelle Banks

Banks is a senior adviser at BarkerGilmore, a New York-based boutique executive search firm, specializing in providing executive coaching to general counsel. She started her career with Sheppard Mullin and then joined Morrison & Foerster as an associate. She worked in Tokyo at ITOCHU Corporation, one the largest trading companies in Japan.

Banks, a UCLA Law School graduate, is the co-founder and co-chair of UCLA Law Women LEAD, a network of almost 2,000 women law students and alumnae at her alma mater focused on leadership, empowerment and advancement for women lawyers. She is a board member of DirectWomen, a nonprofit whose mission is to prepare women lawyers to serve on corporate boards of directors.

Banks was the first woman legal counsel for the Golden State Warriors NBA team before becoming general counsel of Gap Inc. In her pro bono work with the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, she helped lead initiatives to promote diversity at law firms. She was a member of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, where she promoted gender equity, particularly in compensation. In 2017-18, she participated on the conference steering committee for the ABA presidential initiative, “Achieving Long-Term Careers for Women in Law.”

Banks has received numerous awards, including being recognized as a “Legend in Law” by the Burton Foundation; a “Distinguished General Counsel” by the Directors Roundtable; a “Top General Counsel to Watch” by Corporate Board Member; a “Corporate Counsel Innovator” by the Financial Times; an “Influential Woman in Bay Area Business” and a “Corporate Counsel Diversity Champion” by the San Francisco Business Times; a “Most Powerful and Influential Woman” by the California Diversity Council; and a “Woman of Achievement” by Legal Momentum. Santa Clara University Law School presented her with its Social Justice and Human Rights Award in 2014, and UCLA Law School named her its “Alumna of the Year” for Professional Achievement in 2016.

Kelly Dermody

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.

Judith McConnell

McConnell was appointed to the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division 1 in 2001, served as administrative presiding justice of the Fourth Appellate District since 2003, and served for 23 years as a trial judge in San Diego.  She is now a member of the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame.

McConnell earned a bachelor’s degree in 1966 from the University of California-Berkeley, where she was awarded Phi Beta Kappa, and a law degree in 1969 from UC-Berkeley School of Law.

In 1970, McConnell was a founding member of the San Diego chapter of the National Organization for Women. She was a founder and first president of the Lawyers Club of San Diego, a feminist bar association which successfully advocated for the ratification by California of the Equal Rights Amendment. She was a founder and served as president of the National Association of Women Judges. She served as a member of the Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Gender Bias in the Courts and worked on implementation of the recommendations made.

McConnell chaired the California State Senate Task Force on Family Equity where she was outspoken on the gender bias interactions of daily courtroom life.  She also chaired the Leadership Group for Civic Education and currently chairs the Power of Democracy Steering Committee, established to improve civic education in California and to implement the recommendations of the California Task force on K-12 Civic Learning, which she co-chaired.

In 2001, McConnell was named Jurist of the Year by the California Judicial Council.  In 1999, she was the first recipient of the Benjamin Aranda Access to Justice Award presented jointly by the California Judicial Council, the California Judges Association and the State Bar of California. In 2014, she received the Girl Scouts San Diego Cool Women Award for her work mentoring future women leaders. In 2016, she also received the Chief Justice’s Award for Exemplary Service and Leadership for her work in improving civic learning, and in 2018 she received the California Council for Social Studies Civic Action Award.

Julie Su

Su, a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, was appointed Secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency by newly-elected Gov. Gavin Newson in 2019, advising him on labor issues and employment programs for workers and businesses throughout California. The appointment followed her previous role as California Labor Commissioner, where she enforced the state’s labor laws to ensure a fair and just workplace for both employees and employers. Prior to that, she was litigation director at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.

In 1995, Su was among the lead counsel in a federal lawsuit to hold brand name garment manufacturers and retailers liable for using slave labor to manufacture their clothing. She also earned the workers legal immigration status, by successfully arguing that federal statutes originally written to protect narcotics informants also apply to undocumented workers who expose the criminal behavior of their employers.

In 2001, Su won a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant for her innovative work as a workers’ rights and civil rights advocate. Her numerous awards also include: Reebok International Human Rights Award (1996); being named one of four “Pioneers in Women’s History” in an official proclamation by former President Bill Clinton (1997); National Asian-Pacific-American Bar Association’s “Best Under 40” award (2003); “Southern California Super Lawyer” (2004-2009); The Daily Journal list of “Top 75 Women Litigators” in California (2005); and the Gruber Foundation International Women’s Rights Prize (2006).