Biglaw, Women's Issues

75 Outstanding Women Attorneys (2015)

Who are the worthy women recognized as outstanding lawyers?

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‘Tis the season for top lists. This time we’re graced with 75 incredible women from all aspects of the legal profession. After teasing the winners a few weeks ago, today The National Law Journal presented full bios for each of their honorees.

Here’s how NLJ came up with their final list:

Among the factors we considered in selecting our Outstanding Women Lawyers were:

  • Development of successful practices, especially new areas of law or practices typically dominated by men.
  • Attainment of professional leadership roles.
  • Performance in significant cases, including those that resulted in key, often precedent-setting rulings, victories at trial, and significant settlements.
  • Influence and stature in the public sector, including high-level government work.
  • Representation of the underserved or indigent.
  • Demonstrated efforts to improve diversity in the profession.

As one might expect, the list is heavy on Biglaw partners. For good or for ill, Biglaw is generally considered the pinnacle of the legal profession — and have the salaries to prove it — so a list that features attorneys that have chosen that path makes a lot of sense. Here are some of those remarkable women:

  • Alanna Rutherford, the first black equity partner at Boies Schiller, helped negotiate a multibillion settlement for client American Express Co. from Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc.;
  • Christine LaFollette, a partner that runs the Houston Akin Gump office, is a high powered oil industry transactional lawyer;
  • Susan Murley, co-managing partner at WilmerHale, helped the firm make over $1 billion in revenue;
  • Obrea Poindexter, co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s financial-services practice, helped develop MoFo’s first mobile app for regulatory changes in the mobile payments space;
  • Ana Reyes, partner at Williams & Connolly, practices in complex international business litigation and arbitration and counts among her clients the Republic of Uruguay, foreign agencies and the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees.

The list also features some women who chose a career path outside of Biglaw:

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  • NY Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan, who helped found the Asian American Bar Association;
  • Executive Director of the Texas Defenders Service, Kathryn Kase, who represents those with disability or mental illness in capital punishment cases;
  • Founder of Burke PLLC, Susan Burke, who represented Iraqi torture victims at Abu Ghraib;
  • Pro bono counsel at Reed Smith, Jayne Fleming, whose work benefits rape survivors and trafficking victims;
  • Fordham University School of Law professor, Jennifer Gordon, whose report on human trafficking and labor rights will be published by the International Labor Organization of the United Nations this spring.

This is only a small sampling of the incredible women featured by NLJ, check out the full list to get more fodder for your “powerful women” inspiration board.

The National Law Journal’s Outstanding Women Lawyers [National Law Journal]

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