SECTION UPDATE
WOMEN IN THE PROFESSION
Outstanding Woman in the Profession Achievement Award
Luncheon
Members of the Atlanta Bar Association’s Women in the
Profession Section (WIP) were excited and honored to
bestow this year’s “Outstanding Woman in the Profession”
achievement award to Hon. Mary Grace Diehl, United States
Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Georgia. The
group presented Judge Diehl with the award during their
formal luncheon on June 13th at the Capital City Club in
Downtown Atlanta.
Taylor Tribble, 2016-2017 Women in the Profession Sec-
tion Chair, gave the opening remarks: “Judge Diehl is a
longtime and very active WIP member, and a past Chair
of our board. She was an easy choice to receive this award,
based on her significant professional achievements and her
many contributions in furthering the interests of women in
the profession. We are honored this year to be giving her
the Woman of Achievement award.”
Following a brief break for lunch, Michael Jablonski, a
Presidential Doctoral Fellow at Georgia State University
(and Judge Diehl’s husband), presented the award. He began
by noting that most people in the room may believe that
the recently released film “Wonder Woman” was a biopic
about Judge Diehl. The misunderstanding, he said, was not
irrational as there were many similarities between the two
powerful women. For example, both were raised in idyllic
places like Themyscira and Buffalo, New York. Both use
superpowers.
“Wonder Woman possesses skills as a masterful athlete,
acrobat, fighter and strategist, which she uses to bash op-
ponents into submission,” Mr. Jablonski pointed out. “In
reality, Mary Grace’s super powers are more potent: intel-
lect, empathy, rhetoric, energy, and vision.”
The presentation of the award noted that Judge Diehl’s
success as a highly rated college debater and as an honors
graduate of Harvard Law School demonstrated extraordinary
ability, but the true wonder has always been the way that
she applied herself to making the profession better able to
accommodate women as essential players while remaining
dedicated to the ethical representation of clients. Judge Diehl
began her legal career at Troutman Sanders Lockerman &
Ashmore in 1977. She was not only one of the first women
to become a partner in the firm but she was also one of the
few women to practice bankruptcy law on a national stage.
Judge Diehl advocated on behalf of women by example, by
L-R: Hon. Mary Grace Diehl (United States Bankruptcy Court,
NDGA) and Jackie Saylor (The Saylor Law Firm LLP).
mentoring talented women lawyers, and by participating in
firm management. As part of firm management, according to
the citation, “She raised issues that were alien to a formerly
all-male institution. She did not change the firm as much
as she did something more profound: she participated in
its development as a socially conscious institution.”
In service to the profession, she did much the same. She
chaired the bankruptcy sections of both the State Bar and
the Atlanta Bar. She chaired the Women-in-the-Profession
Committee in from 2002-2004. She has been a director,
treasurer, president-elect and president of the Southeastern
Bankruptcy Law Institute. She has served as the Southeastern
Conference Chair for the American Bankruptcy Institute,
where she still is on the Board of Directors.
Mr. Jablonski continued, “Mary Grace’s outstanding legal
and intellectual abilities are exemplified by her work as
the revision author Collier Compensation, Employment
and Appointment of Trustees and Professionals. She has
edited the Bankruptcy Law Case Notes for the State Bar.
Mary Grace transformed the operation and finances of
the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, where she
was president last year after previously serving as chair of
the Education, the Schwartz Roundtable and the Finance
Committees. She is still a director.”
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association THE ATLANTA LAWYER
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