The American Bar Association announced today that it will award the ABA Medal to ALI President Roberta Cooper Ramo at the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago on August 1, 2015. The ABA Medal is the Association’s highest award and is given only in years when the ABA Board of Governors determines a nominee has provided exceptional and distinguished service to the law and the legal profession.
President Ramo is not only the first woman to serve as president of ALI, but was also the first woman to serve as ABA President in 1995. She is the only person to have led both organizations. In addition, she was elected in 2011 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a member of the American College of Trust and Estate Council, and has been awarded six honorary degrees. President Ramo is also currently a shareholder at Modrall Sperling, where she concentrates her practice in the areas of mediation, arbitration, business law, real estate, probate, and estate planning.
Among previous recipients of the ABA medal are U.S. Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Felix Frankfurter, Thurgood Marshall, William J. Brennan, Jr., and Sandra Day O’Connor. Other recipients include former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, William H. Gates, Sr.