The American Bar Association Medal (or ABA Medal) is the highest award given by the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

for "exceptionally distinguished service by a lawyer or lawyers to the cause of American jurisprudence." The ABA Board of Governors chooses the medal's recipient. The medal was authorized at the 50th anniversary meeting of the ABA in 1928. The first medal was given in 1929 and it has been given most, but not all, years since. The medal itself was designed by

Laura Gardin Fraser Laura may refer to: People * Laura (given name) * Laura, the British code name for the World War I Belgian spy Marthe Cnockaert Places Australia * Laura, Queensland, a town on the Cape York Peninsula * Laura, South Australia * Laura Bay, a bay on ...

. It is four inches in diameter, made of 24K gold, later reduced to 14K gold. On the obverse is a profile of John Marshall with the inscription "To the end it may be a government of laws and not of men," from the

Constitution of Massachusetts The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the fundamental governing document of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 individual state governments that make up the United States of America. As a member of the Massachuset ...

. On the reverse is "Justitia" with a likeness of

Lady Justice Lady Justice ( la, Iustitia) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia. Lady Justice originates from the ...

List of recipients

:''Source:
Recipients of the American Bar Association Medal
at the

website'' * 1929 Samuel Williston * 1930 Elihu Root * 1931

Oliver Wendel Holmes Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (; August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among the fireside poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most fa ...

* 1932

John Henry Wigmore John Henry Wigmore (1863–1943) was an American lawyer and legal scholar known for his expertise in the law of evidence and for his influential scholarship. Wigmore taught law at Keio University in Tokyo (1889–1892) before becoming the first ...

* 1934

George Woodward Wickersham George Woodward Wickersham (September 19, 1858 – January 25, 1936) was an American lawyer and Attorney General of the United States in the administration of President William H. Taft. He returned to government to serve in appointed positi ...

* 1938 Herbert Harley * 1939 Edgar Bronson Tolman * 1940

Roscoe Pound Nathan Roscoe Pound (October 27, 1870 – June 30, 1964) was an American legal scholar and educator. He served as Dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law from 1903 to 1911 and Dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936. He was a membe ...

* 1941 George Wharton Pepper * 1942

Charles Evans Hughes Charles Evans Hughes Sr. (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American statesman, politician and jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the ...

* 1943

John J. Parker John Johnston Parker (November 20, 1885 – March 17, 1958) was an American politician and United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was an unsuccessful nominee for associate justice of the Unite ...

* 1944

Hatton W. Sumners Hatton William Sumners (May 30, 1875 – April 19, 1962) was a Democratic Congressman from the Dallas, Texas area, serving from 1913 to 1947. He rose to become Chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. Early life and career Hatto ...

* 1946 Carl McFarland * 1947 William L. Ransom * 1948

Arthur T. Vanderbilt Arthur T. Vanderbilt (July 7, 1888 – June 16, 1957) was an American judge and judicial reformer. He served as Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1948 to 1957, the first Chief Justice under the revamped New Jersey court system e ...

* 1950 Orie L. Phillips * 1951 Reginald Heber Smith * 1952

Harrison Tweed Harrison Tweed (October 18, 1885 – June 16, 1969) was an American lawyer and civic leader. Life and career Tweed was born in New York City on October 18, 1885. He was the son of Charles Harrison Tweed, the general counsel for the Central Pacif ...

* 1953 Frank E. Holman * 1954 George Maurice Morris * 1956 Robert G. Storey * 1957 William Clarke Mason * 1958 E. Smythe Gambrell * 1959 Greenville Clark * 1960 William A. Schnader * 1961 Jacob Mark Lashly * 1962 Tom C. Clark * 1963

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...

* 1964 Henry S. Drinker * 1965 Edmund M. Morgan * 1966 Charles S. Rhyne * 1967

Roger J. Traynor Roger John Traynor (February 12, 1900 – May 14, 1983) was the 23rd Chief Justice of California (1964-1970) and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from 1940 to 1964. Previously, he had served as a Deputy Attorney General o ...

* 1968 J. Edward Lumbard * 1969

Walter V. Schaefer Walter Vincent Schaefer (December 10, 1904 – June 15, 1986) was an American jurist and educator. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Schaefer graduated from Hyde Park High School and then received his bachelor's and law degrees from University of C ...

* 1970 Frank C. Haymond * 1971

Whitney North Seymour Whitney North Seymour Sr. (January 4, 1901 – May 21, 1983) was an American attorney who worked primarily as a trial lawyer. He served as assistant solicitor general during the presidency of Herbert Hoover. In 1960, he was elected the 84th pr ...

* 1972 Harold Gallagher * 1973

William James Jameson William James Jameson (August 8, 1898 – October 8, 1990) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Montana. Education and career Born in Butte, Montana, Jameson received an Artium Baccalaur ...

* 1974 Ross L. Malone * 1975

Leon Jaworski Leonidas "Leon" Jaworski (September 19, 1905 – December 9, 1982) was an American attorney and law professor who served as the second special prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal. He was appointed to that position on November 1, 1973, soon a ...

* 1976 Bernard G. Segal * 1977 Edward L. Wright * 1978 Erwin N. Griswold * 1979 Lewis F. Powell, Jr * 1981

Chesterfield Smith Chesterfield Harvey Smith (July 28, 1917 – July 16, 2003) was an American lawyer. He co-founded the law firm Holland & Knight and served as president of the American Bar Association in 1973-1974, during the Watergate scandal. Early life an ...

* 1982 Earl F. Morris * 1984 Robert W. Meserve * 1986 Justin A. Stanley * 1987

Warren E. Burger Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was an American attorney and jurist who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Burger graduated from the St. Paul Colleg ...

* 1988 F. Wm. McCalpin * 1989 Wm. Reece Smith, Jr. * 1990

A. Sherman Christensen Albert Sherman Christensen (June 9, 1905 – August 13, 1996) was a trial attorney, author, and a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Christensen was the first mem ...

* 1991 Robert B. McKay * 1992

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

* 1993 Randolph W. Thrower * 1994 William J. Brennan, Jr. * 1995 Shirley M. Hufstedler * 1996

John Minor Wisdom John Minor Wisdom (May 17, 1905 – May 15, 1999), one of the "Fifth Circuit Four", and a Republican from Louisiana, was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit during the 1950s and 1960s, when t ...

* 1997 Sandra Day O'Connor * 1998 Morris Harrell * 1999

John H. Pickering John Harold Pickering (February 27, 1916 – March 19, 2005) was a founding partner of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, which became one of Washington, D.C.'s most prominent law firms. He was best known for his role as an appellate lawyer in cases ...

* 2000 Oliver W. Hill * 2001

Robert MacCrate Robert MacCrate (July 18, 1921 – April 6, 2016) was an American lawyer who served as Counsel to New York Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller and as Special Counsel to the Department of the Army for its investigation of the My Lai Massacre. In the ...

* 2002

William H. Webster William Hedgcock Webster (born March 6, 1924) is an American attorney and jurist who most recently served as chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 until 2020. He was a United States district judge of the United States Distr ...

* 2003 Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte * 2004 Father Robert F. Drinan * 2005 George Leighton * 2006 Jerome J. Shestack * 2007 Anthony M. Kennedy * 2008 Patricia M. Wald * 2009 William H. Gates, Sr. * 2010

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...

* 2011

David Boies David Boies (; born March 11, 1941) is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. Boies rose to national prominence for three major cases: leading the U.S. federal government's successful prosecution of Microsof ...

and Theodore B. Olson * 2012 Morris Seligman Dees, Jr. * 2013

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

* 2014 General Earl E. Anderson * 2015 Roberta Cooper Ramo * 2016

Dennis Archer Dennis Wayne Archer (born January 1, 1942) is an American lawyer, jurist and former politician from Michigan. A Democrat, Archer served as Justice on the Michigan Supreme Court and as mayor of Detroit. He later served as president of the Amer ...

* 2017

John Feerick John D. Feerick (born July 12, 1936) is a law professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York City. He served as the school's eighth dean from 1982-2002. From 2002-2004, he was the Leonard F. Manning Professor of Law at Fordham, and ...

* 2018

Bryan Stevenson Bryan Stevenson (born November 14, 1959) is an American lawyer, social justice activist, law professor at New York University School of Law, and the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, h ...

* 2019

Dale Minami Dale Minami (born October 13, 1946) is a prominent Japanese American civil rights and personal injury lawyer based in San Francisco, California. He is best known for his work leading the legal team that overturned the conviction of Fred Korematsu ...

* 2020 William H. Neukom

References

{{reflist Lifetime achievement awards Awards established in 1929 Legal awards