To recognize a female attorney for her professional and personal accomplishments, the Indianapolis Bar Association’s Women and the Law Division is seeking nominations for the 2010 Antoinette Dakin Leach Award.

The award nomination form can be found online at www.indybar.org; please submit nominations by July 31, 2010. The recipient will be honored at a fall luncheon.

In 1990, the Women and the Law Division of the Indianapolis Bar Association established the award to honor outstanding women in the legal profession. Named after one of the first female lawyers in Indiana, the Antoinette Dakin Leach Award is presented only when the Division deems a worthy candidate exists.

Antoinette Dakin Leach (1859-1922) gained admittance to the Indiana Bar only after the Indiana Supreme Court overruled a lower court ruling which stated that a woman was “not a citizen in the sense that she could hold office and practice law.” Ms. Leach went on to a successful career as an attorney and was a state and national leader in the suffragist movement.

Nominations should include overviews of the candidate’s professional accomplishments, leadership characteristics, community involvement, and other personal and professional attributes.

Please take a moment to nominate a woman attorney who has demonstrated some of the attributes of Antoinette Dakin Leach — by encouraging other women in the pursuit of this honorable profession or blazing a path not taken by others.•