Bernice B. Donald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was awarded the 2017 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award by the ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession at its Annual Meeting.
Judge Donald served as president of the National Association of Women Judges, where she developed a curriculum to teach women how to position themselves for election in states or how to develop as lawyers to be qualified candidates for appointment to judgeships.
She is the first African-American to serve on the Sixth Circuit, the first African-American female jurist in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, and was the first African-American female judge in Tennessee, elected in 1982.
Read the ABA’s press release.