Congratulations to Charisse R. Lillie of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll in Philadelpia who was honored as the outstanding woman lawyer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Mercedes A. Laing has joined the Chicago office of Holland & Knight as a partner.

Congratulations to Ken Murphy, President of the Barristers Association in Philadelphia, PA and his wife on the birth of their daughter, Morgan Elise Murphy.

Gerard H. Gonzalez of Milwaukee, WI was appointed to the board of directos of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.

Edwin A. Burnette has been named the head of the Cook County (IL) Public Defender's Office. In that capacity, he will be overseeing 840 employees and managing a $47.5 million budget.

Congratulations to Luis Riesgo on his election to partner at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue.

Nigel F. Telman has joined Sidley Austin Brown & Woods as a partner in the firm's Chicago office.

Congratulations to Joyce S. Huang on her election to partner in the New York office of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison.

Linzey Jones, the mayor of Olympia Fields, IL, has joined Pugh Jones & Johnson as a partner specializing in labor and employment law.

Reed Smith has two new minority partners: Stephen M. Chin in its New York office and Min S. Suh in the Philadelphia office. Congratulations!

Condolences to the family and friends of Harold Leon on his passing. Mr. Leon was a trailblazer in Michigan and one of the founders of American Citizens for Justice, which developed out of the Vincent Chin murder.

Congratulations to Gabriel E. Nieto and Andre Zamorano on becoming new partners with Steel, Hector & Davis in Miami.

Sirat K. Attapit is a new associate with Chmiel & Matuszewich in Chicago.

Horace H. Ng and Chun-Pok (Roger) Leung are two new partners at Townsend and Townsend and Crew in San Francisco. Congratulations!

Peggy Kuo has joined Wilmer Cutler & Pickering's Washington, D.C. office as Counsel. She was a trial attorney with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and was acting deputy chief with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

Congratulations to Petra Jimenez Maes on her election as Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court. Her election makes her the first Hispanic woman to hold that position in any state.

Roland Garcia was selected to receive a 2003 Savvy Award from Foley's and the Houston Chronicle for his volunteer work with Aspiring Youth of Houston.

Paul W. Lee of Goodwin Procter in Boston, MA was honored by the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts with the organization's 2002 Community Service Award. Paul was described as "a pioneer in the Asian American legal community in Massachusetts" and someone who has "championed issues of importance not just to Asian American attorneys, but to the Asian American community as a whole."

Armando M. Gamboa has joined the Chicago office of Freeborn & Peters.

Dale Minami of Minami, Lew & Tamaki in San Francisco will be the 2003 recipient of the ABA's Thurgood Marshall Award. The award will be presented by the ABA Section of Individual Rights & Responsibilities during the ABA Annual Meeting on August 9th in San Francisco.

Congratulations to Y. Curt Chang on his election to partnership at Leydig, Voit & Mayer in Chicago.

Loretta E. Lynch of Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C. has become a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Congratulations to Marina N. Saito on her election to partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago.

Hon. Jacqueline P. Cox has been named a bankruptcy judge for the Northern District of Illinois.

Congratulations to Marisa Chun on her election to partner at Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass in San Francisco.

Anita Alvarez is the new chief of staff for the Cook County (IL) State's Attorney's Office.

Maxwell Griffin, Jr., Arthur Hill, Sanjay Tailor, and Jorge Luis Alonso have become associate judges of the Circuit Court of Cook County, IL.

Hon. Rodolfo Garcia has been elevated to the 1st District Appellate Court of the Illinois Appellate Court.

Elissa Rhee-Lee has been named Counsel at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago.

Congratulations to Frances Kao on becoming a partner at the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom.

Hon. Nathaniel Jones co-convened the Black Lawyers Association of Cincinnati - Cincinnati Bar Association Round Table which recently honored those making considerable efforts in promoting diversity in the Greater Cincinnati legal community.

Jorge V. Cazares has been elected president of the Loyola University Latino Alumni Board.

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Have some good, bad, happy or sad news you’d like to share with minority lawyers and others interested in diversity issues? E-mail any announcements or other news (personal or professional) to the Commission on Racial & Ethnic Diversity in the Profession at yamates@staff.abanet.org– of course, the Commission reserves the right to edit or refuse publication of any submission.