FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Kathleen (Kitty) O’Connor, President
Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts
(978)266-0101
kittyoconnor@eckel-law.com

Elisabeth J. Medvedow, Executive Director
Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts
(617) 973-6666
medvedow@womensbar.org

Women’s Bar Association announces 2006 Lelia J. Robinson Awardees

(Boston)- The Board of Directors of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts (WBA) announced that it has selected Nadine Cohen of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Ellen Kearns of Foley & Lardner LLP to receive the 2006 Lelia J. Robinson Award, which will be presented at the WBA’s Annual Gala on October 17, 2006 at the Westin Copley Place Hotel, Boston.

The Lelia J. Robinson award, presented since 1994 by the WBA, was named for the first woman admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts. Recent honorees include Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno; Maria Krokidas of Krokidas & Bluestein; Stephanie Page of the Committee for Public Counsel Services; Lauren Stiller Rikleen of Bowditch & Dewey; and Janet Donovan of Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc.

“The award is given in honor of Robinson’s achievement in the legal profession and recalls her energy and determination by recognizing women in the profession who have worked to extend representation to all classes of people and to build a society that is truly just,” says WBA President Kitty O’Connor. “Both of this year’s awardees exemplify these qualities.”

Nadine Cohen is a senior attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association, a thirty-seven year old legal organization engaged in impact litigation and the representation of victims of race and national origin discrimination in the areas of housing, employment, education, voting rights and racial violence. Nadine has directed the fair housing work of the Lawyers’ Committee and handled numerous individual and class action housing discrimination cases in federal and state courts, and before administrative agencies. In addition to her housing work, she has also taken on cases involving voting rights, education, employment, environmental justice and other civil rights cases. 

Among her many other accomplishments, Nadine developed Boston’s first private fair housing test project and established a private bar panel to handle referrals of fair housing cases. She was involved with community groups in Boston to change the racially discriminatory lending practices of banks and mortgage companies, and achieved settlements that significantly increased mortgage lending to people of color in the greater Boston area. Nadine was also instrumental in establishing the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston, a new private fair housing organization in Boston and served as the Board’s first President. She has conducted numerous trainings on housing discrimination law and has presented at many national conferences. She has been honored by the Boston Branch of the NAACP, the Boston Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, HUD, METCO, the National Lawyers’ Committee and the Newton Human Rights Committee and other groups for her work on civil rights issues. 

Ellen Kearns is a past president of both the WBA (1997-1998) and the WBF (2000) and is the immediate Past President of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations. Ellen is a preeminent labor and employment attorney and has written and lectured extensively on a variety of wage and hour issues. She is presently of counsel at Foley & Lardner in Boston. Prior to her association with Foley, Ellen was a partner and founder of Kearns & Rubin, P.C., which ultimately merged with Epstein Becker & Green, where she was a member.

Among her many accomplishments, Ellen is the former chair of the BBA’s labor and employment section, the MBA’s labor and employment law council, and the ABA’s Committee on Federal Labor Standards Legislation.  She is the recipient of the Alumnae Achievement Award from her alma mater, Regis College, and the Alumna of the Year Award from Boston College Law School and served as president of the Boston College Law School Alumni Association. She is the current editor of the BNA publication on State Wage and Hour Laws and the former editor of various other labor and employment publications. Ellen was named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer in 2004 and 2005 and is currently listed in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business for 2006, The Best Lawyers in America® and Who’s Who Legal USA– Management Labor & Employment 2006. Ellen’s leadership in the WBA and WBF and her mentoring of legions of women attorneys over the years is truly extraordinary and we are honored to recognize her contributions to us and to the legal community. 

About the Women’s Bar Association
Formed in 1978 by a group of activist women lawyers, the Women’s Bar Association has grown to more than 1,000 women lawyers from around the state, committed to the full and equal participation of women in the legal system and a just society.