Jenner & Block Partner to Receive ABA Award

May 3, 2012 - Jenner & Block is thrilled to announce that our long-time partner Joan M. Hall will receive a prestigious award from the American Bar Association at the ABA’s annual meeting this summer in Chicago. Joan will receive the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. She is the first Jenner & Block lawyer to receive this honor. The Margaret Brent award was established by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession in 1991. It recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of women lawyers who have excelled in their field and have paved the way to success for other women lawyers.

Joan was an active partner with Jenner & Block for 34 years. Joan joined the Firm in 1965, the second woman to practice with the Firm as a lawyer. Over the course of her career, Joan was a prominent commercial litigator, representing clients in trials and appeals throughout the country, including in the Unites States Supreme Court. Joan was a leader both within the Firm and in the profession, and she blazed a trail for women lawyers at Jenner & Block and the legal community as a whole. Joan’s many accomplishments include serving as the first female Chair of the Firm’s Hiring Committee, the first female member of the Firm’s Executive Committee, the first female Chair of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation, the first woman to serve as Chair of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and the third woman ever to be elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. The list of Joan’s accomplishments goes on and on.  

Following her retirement from active practice with Jenner & Block, Joan continued to be very active in the community, and was instrumental in the creation of the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School, the first all-girl public school in Chicago. Since 1983, Joan has served as a Trustee of Rush University Medical Center and as chairman of their Quality of Care Committee. She is also a trustee of Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, and a member of the Personnel Committee, as well as the search committee for a new senior pastor.

Please join us in saluting Joan on this tremendous honor. For more information on the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, please click here.