Marna Tucker Honored by the D.C. Bar
Senior partner Marna S. Tucker has recently been honored by the D.C. Bar, which has named a conference room honoring her in the new D.C. Bar offices and has featured her in a profile in the March issue of the Bar’s Washington Lawyer.
Marna played a key role in the founding of the D.C. Bar in 1972, pushing to ensure that there was diversity in the attorneys who were nominated for its inaugural Board of Governors. Marna herself became the first woman president of the Bar in 1983 and later, the first woman president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents.
Even before the D.C. Bar was founded, in the days when the public interest bar was just getting started, Marna was one of the founders of the Washington Council of Lawyers which lobbied DC law firms to do more pro bono work.
Throughout her legal career, Marna has served the Bar and the legal profession in numerous roles including serving on the Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility and as the Bar’s Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates. Within the ABA, she chaired the Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities and was one of the founders of its Women’s Caucus. She co-chaired its Commission on Violence Against Women, the Standing Committee on Discipline and the Commission on Civics Education in our Nation’s Schools. She was one of the founding members of the National Women’s Law Center, which remains one of the preeminent national organizations advancing the legal rights of women.
Marna views as particularly impactful her years on the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary which evaluates nominees for all Federal judgeships including nominees for Supreme Court seats.
When asked to reflect on what has been most meaningful to her about her service to the legal community, Marna said “As I look back, I was able to be on the cutting edge of motivating the legal profession to bring about changes in our society to benefit the poor, women and minorities. I also had the opportunity to work with and learn from extraordinary people – ABA President Chesterfield Smith who modelled courage, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman who actively encouraged and assisted women to the forefront of leadership, and U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Wald who has a brilliant and incisive legal mind and was able to balance raising five extraordinary children while maintaining a distinguished legal career.”
The attorneys of Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell, LLP join the D.C. Bar in honoring Marna, the founder of the firm’s Family Law Practice Group.
