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 acade ...

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 ba ...

. It is four inches in diameter, made of 24K gold, later reduced to 14K gold. On the obverse is a profile of

John Marshall John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longes ...

with the inscription "To the end it may be a government of laws and not of men," from the Constitution of Massachusetts. 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 p ...

List of recipients

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

website'' * 1929

Samuel Williston Samuel Williston (September 24, 1861 – February 18, 1963) was an American lawyer and law professor who authored an influential treatise on contracts. Early life, education and family Williston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to a ...

* 1930

Elihu Root Elihu Root (; February 15, 1845February 7, 1937) was an American lawyer, Republican politician, and statesman who served as Secretary of State and Secretary of War in the early twentieth century. He also served as United States Senator from ...

* 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 f ...

* 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 * 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 memb ...

* 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 * 1944 Hatton W. Sumners * 1946 Carl McFarland * 1947 William L. Ransom * 1948 Arthur T. Vanderbilt * 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 Thomas Campbell Clark (September 23, 1899June 13, 1977) was an American lawyer who served as the 59th United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967. Clark w ...

* 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 of ...

* 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 * 1972 Harold Gallagher * 1973 William James Jameson * 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 af ...

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

* 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 ...

* 1997

Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was both the first woman nominated and the ...

* 1998 Morris Harrell * 1999 John H. Pickering * 2000 Oliver W. Hill * 2001 Robert MacCrate * 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 Distric ...

* 2003 Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte * 2004 Father Robert F. Drinan * 2005 George Leighton * 2006 Jerome J. Shestack * 2007

Anthony M. Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Preside ...

* 2008 Patricia M. Wald * 2009

William H. Gates, Sr. William Henry Gates II (November 30, 1925September 14, 2020), better known as Bill Gates Sr., was an American attorney, philanthropist, and civic leader. He was the founder of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates (a predecessor of K&L Gates), ...

* 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 senat ...

* 2014 General

Earl E. Anderson Earl Edward Anderson (June 24, 1919 – November 12, 2015) was an U.S. Marine four-star general. He was the youngest active duty Marine ever promoted to the rank of general and the first active duty Marine Naval Aviator to be promoted to a 4-st ...

* 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 Ameri ...

* 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, he ...

* 2019 Dale Minami * 2020 William H. Neukom

References

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