The Outstanding Advocate is awarded to an attorney who has gone above and beyond to fight for the rights of women and minority groups, and the people of the Commonwealth, and as such, has embodied the WBA’s mission in their advocacy.
The WBA is proud to recognize Attorney General Maura Healey with this award. AG Healey was honored at an anniversary party on March 8, 2018 at Goulston & Storrs. The anniversary party kicked off the celebration of the WBA’s 40th anniversary and the Women’s Bar Foundation’s (WBF) 25th anniversary.
AG Healey began serving as Massachusetts Attorney General in January 2015, after winning an historic victory in her first-ever run for office. Prior to her election, AG Healey helped lead the Attorney General’s Office as Chief of the Civil Rights Division and went on to become chief of the office’s Public Protection and Business & Labor Bureaus.
Since her election as Attorney General, she has focused on expanding economic opportunity by addressing rising energy and health care costs, tackling student loan debt, and ensuring fair treatment for workers and a level playing field for businesses. AG Healey has also gained national prominence for her leadership in combatting the state’s opioid epidemic, including expanding substance use prevention training for young people.
AG Healey has spent years leading the People’s Law Firm in the fight for fairness and equality, and expanding opportunities for women, vulnerable communities, and working families across Massachusetts. Most recently, AG Healey’s office issued new guidance with resources for employers as they prepare for the updated Massachusetts Equal Pay Act to go into effect this summer, providing greater clarity as to what constitutes gender-based wage discrimination, adding new protections for workers, and incentivizing employers to address gender-based pay disparities and achieve pay equity.
AG Healey has long been recognized as a leader by the Women’s Bar Association. She was a member of the Charter Class of the Women’s Leadership Initiative in 2009, where she was selected as an up and coming woman lawyer expected to achieve great things in her career. There is no doubt that she has served as a role model for the many lawyers in the organization who have since participated in the program and followed in her footsteps in making the Commonwealth safer and more just.
About the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts
Founded in 1978 by a group of activist women lawyers, the Women’s Bar Association boasts a vast membership of accomplished women lawyers, judges, and law students across Massachusetts. The WBA is committed to the full and equal participation of women in the legal profession and in a just society. The WBA works to achieve this mission through committees and taskforces and by developing and promoting a legislative agenda to address society’s most critical social and legal issues. Other WBA activities include drafting amicus briefs, studying employment issues affecting women, encouraging women to enter the judiciary, recognizing the achievement of women in the law, and providing pro bono services to women in need through supporting its charitable sister organization, the Women’s Bar Foundation. For more information, visit www.womensbar.org.