Posted by The Chicago Bar Association and 18 other local bar associations annually present the Vanguard Awards to honor lawyers, jurists, and institutions who promote strength, professionalism, and diversity across the Chicagoland legal community. This year’s awards ceremony will be held at the Union League Club of Chicago on Tuesday, April 21, at 11:30 a.m. to recognize these trailblazers who make the law and legal profession more accessible to and reflective of the community at large.
“Our 2026 Vanguard Honorees represent the absolute best of our legal community, and their contributions to access, equity, and excellence in the law are truly deserving of this recognition. The CBA is incredibly proud to recognize our honoree, Judge Fredrick H. Bates, for embodying this mission throughout his distinguished career, including as the Founder and Past Chairperson of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, a transformative organization dedicated to advancing racial and ethnic diversity across the legal profession,” said CBA President Judge Nichole C. Patton.
Distinguished award recipients include: Advocates Society, Judge Diann K. Marsalek,
Arab American Bar Association of Illinois, Anthony (“Tony”) Michael Abou Ezzi, Asian American Bar Association, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Justice Goodwin H. Liu, and the American Bar Foundation for work on “Portrait Project 2.0: Asian Americans in the Legal Profession,”Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc., Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago, Daniel R. Murray, Chicago Bar Association
Judge Fredrick H. Bates, Cook County Bar Association, Cannon Lambert, Sr., Decalogue Society of Lawyers, Judge Abbey Fishman Romanek, Filipino American Lawyers Association, Mark J. Calaguas, Haitian American Lawyers Association, Judie Lyn Smith,
Hellenic Bar Association of Illinois, Judge Koula A. Fournier, Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, Nancy Andrade, Justinian Society of Lawyers, Judge Jill Cerone-Marisie, Korean American Bar Association, Caroline K. Kwon, LAGBAC -Chicago’s LGBTQ+ Bar Association, Judge Mary M. Rowland, Muslim Bar Association of Chicago, Naheda Zayyad-Hussien, Puerto Rican Bar Association, Judge Lucy Vazquez-Gonzalez,
South Asian Bar Association of Chicago, Avani Patel, and Women’s Bar Association of Illinois, Judge Patrice M. Ball-Reed (ret.).
The CBA’s honoree, Judge Bates, is a Judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Previously, he clerked for the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, was an associate at a major Chicago law firm, served as an equity partner at two large law firms, and was the President of the first minority-owned corporate law firm in the country, where all of the partners had been partners at major corporate law firms. He also served in the Administrative Law Judiciary for over 15. He has served the legal profession as President of the Cook County Bar Association and as Co-Chair of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, which he co-founded as the brain trust of the organization in 1987, well before diversity awareness and inclusion initiatives were generally accepted in the workplace. He is widely considered a leading national expert on diversity initiatives in law firms, and under his leadership, Chicago’s large law firms took the lead in ushering in collaborative efforts to recruit, retain, and promote lawyers of color. Judge Bates is a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow with an extensive record of service to the community, having served on over 20 not-for-profit Boards. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his community service and service to the profession and is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Association.
Tickets are $75 per person and $750 per table. The reception begins at 11:30 a.m., and the luncheon and awards start at noon. For more information, go to https://www.chicagobar.org/Vanguard.