News

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Receive ALI’s Friendly Medal

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Receive ALI’s Friendly Medal

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will receive the Henry J. Friendly Medal at the Institute’s 95th Annual Meeting, in May 2018. The Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, will present the award.

Established in memory of Judge Henry J. Friendly, the Medal recognizes contributions to the law in the tradition of Judge Friendly and the Institute and is not limited to ALI members or those associated with its projects. The Friendly Medal is not awarded every year but only as appropriate.

“We are delighted that Justice Ginsburg will receive the Friendly Medal this year,” said David F. Levi, President of The American Law Institute. “Justice Ginsburg embodies the thoughtfulness, dedication, and analytical power of Judge Friendly. She has made remarkable contributions to the law over the course of her long and distinguished career on the bench and before that as an advocate and law professor. Her work to advance the status and treatment of women is justly celebrated and is a lasting influence on the law and the legal system. Like Judge Friendly, Justice Ginsburg was a devoted member of the Council of The American Law Institute, and so it is particularly fitting and proper that she should receive the Friendly Medal and receive it from the hands of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, who clerked for Judge Friendly and who was also a member of The American Law Institute.”

Justice Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959 to 1961. From 1961 to 1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963 to 1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972 to 1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977 to 1978. In 1971, she co-founded the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973 to 1980, and on the National Board of Directors from 1974 to 1980. She served on the Board and Executive Committee of the American Bar Foundation from 1979 to 1989, on the Board of Editors of the American Bar Association Journal from 1972 to 1978, and on the Council of The American Law Institute from 1978 to 1993. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat August 10, 1993.

Justice Ginsburg was elected to The American Law Institute in 1972 and to its Council in 1978. She served as an Adviser to the Complex Litigation Project and the Restatement Second, Judgments.

Featured Members