Nominations Now Open for Newly Created ABA Award Recognizing
Leadership in Expanding Education Diversity Pipeline

CHICAGO, Dec. 2, 2008 Nominations are now open for candidates for the first-ever recipient of the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Award for Excellence in Pipeline Diversity.
 
Increasing diversity in the legal profession does not start with encouragement to college graduates of color.  The educational pipeline starts as early as pre-school and extends into advancement and retention in the legal profession.  Unless students learn critical thinking skills as early as fourth grade and see what they can be with lawyer mentors and role models, our profession will fail to grow the leadership and lawyers we need for the future.  We want to honor those who recognize the educational crisis in the legal profession and are doing something about it, said Ruthe Catolico Ashley of Sacramento, Calif., chair of the American Bar Association Presidential Advisory Council on Diversity in the Profession, in announcing creation of the new award.  
 
Raymond and Sadie Alexander founded the first African-American law firm in Philadelphia.  Their tireless commitment to equal rights and civil liberties served their community, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the nation.  As pioneers and architects of the law, they were paving the way for advances in equality well before the civil rights movement of the 1960s, she said.
 
Raymond Alexander graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Finance and Commerce in 1920, and from Harvard Law School in 1923.  Sadie Alexander was the first African-American to earn a doctoral degree in economics at the University of Pennsylvania, completing it in 1921 only to be barred from commensurate employment by race and gender.  She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1927, and was the first African American woman to do so.  Their firm litigated discrimination cases, and helped draft the states 1935 Equal Rights Law, prohibiting denial of access to public schools, restaurants and hotels to African-Americans.  Their firm dissolved in 1959 when Raymond Alexander became the first African-American judge of the states Court of Common Pleas, its highest trial court.
 
Nominees for the new award may be individuals or organizations.  They should have shown innovation and leadership in an educational pipeline diversity program that involves collaborative partnerships linking segments along the way.  Examples might be programs extending from high school to law school, or from college to practicing law.  Programs should have documented records of success expanding opportunities for students of color, should have worked with or influenced others to engage in pipeline programs, and have advanced opportunities for students of color.
 
Full details of the nomination requirements and procedures, as well as a nomination form, are available at http://www.abanet.org/op/councilondiversity/RaymondandSadieAlexanderAward.html.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

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