Each year, the Chicago Bar Association and a number of other Illinois bar associations honor legal professionals for their work in diversity and inclusion. This year, the 2017 Vanguard Awards will recognize 15 lawyers, judges, and legal organizations who help make the law and the legal profession more accessible to and reflective of the community-at-large.
Each of the honorees has worked to make the profession a better place for those of varying ethnicities, races, sexual orientations, and genders and more representative of the client’s today’s professionals represent.
The 2017 Vanguard Award Honorees include:
- Michael C. Aguhar of the Filipino American Lawyers Association
- Justice Anne M. Burke of the Chicago Bar Association
- Chicago Legal Clinic, Inc. Advocates Society
- Susana Darwin of the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago
- Justice Robert E. Gordon of the Decalogue Society of Lawyers
- David Herrera of the Puerto Rican Bar Association
- Hon. Patricia Brown Holmes (Ret.) of the Black Women Lawyers Association
- Sana’a Hussien of the Arab American Bar Association of Illinois
- Andrea S. Kramer of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois
- Sang-yul Lee of the Asian American Bar Association
- James D. Montgomery Sr. of the Cook County Bar Association
- National Immigrant Justice Center Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois
- Tony Shu of the Chinese American Bar Association
- Sufyan Sohel of the South Asian Bar Association of Chicago
- Adrian Vuckovich of the Serbian Bar Association
The annual Vanguard Awards reception will be held on April 6, 2017 at the Standard Club’s Grand Ballroom, located at 320 S. Plymouth Court in Chicago. The reception will begin at 11:30am with a lunch to follow at 12:00pm.
Registration is currently available for those wishing to attend. To reserve a seat or an entire table of ten, please contact Tamra Drees. She can be reached at 312-554-2057 or via email at tdrees@chicagobar.org.
The fee for registration at this year’s Vanguard Awards is $70 per person or $700 for a table of 10.