Marsha Simms Receives 2010 Glass Cutter Award from ABA Business Law Section

CHICAGO, April 30, 2010 – Marsha E. Simms, corporate partner at the New York City office of Weil Gotshal & Manges, is the 2010 recipient of the Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award from the American Bar Association Business Law Section.

Simms received the award April 23 during the Business Law Section 2010 Spring Meeting.  She is the 18^th individual to be recognized with the Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award, named to honor the first woman chair of the Business Law Section.

Presented annually to an exceptional woman business lawyer who has made significant contributions to both the profession and to the Business Law Section, the award was first given in 1993.

Simms, who practices in the areas of debt financing and restructuring, has extensive experience negotiating financing and restructuring documentation.  She has lectured in legal areas for the Practicing Law Institute and ALI/ABA, and in Africa for ABA technical assistance projects.

For the years 2001–2007 she was named one of the world’s leading lawyers in banking and finance by Chambers Global. She has been named as one of America’s Top Black Lawyers by Black Enterprise Magazine and from 2005–2009 as a leader in banking and finance law by Chambers USA – Leading Lawyers for Business.

A member of the editorial board for the ABA Business Law Section’s The Business Lawyer and a former member of the editorial board of Business Law Today, she also is a member of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.

She is a member of the Banking Law Committee and the Committee on Minorities in the Profession for the New York State Bar Association, and serves as a member of the Audit committee for the New York City Bar Association.

Among her other memberships and accomplishments, Simms is a life member of the Board of Trustees of Educational Broadcasting Corporation.  She is a former trustee of the Stanford Alumni Association and was a member of the Stanford Law School Campaign Steering Committee.

A graduate of Barnard College, Simms earned her J.D. from Stanford University.

With almost 60,000 members, the ABA Business Law Section is one of the association’s largest sections.  It provides business lawyers with education and analysis that furthers the development and improvement of business law, and it helps its members serve their clients competently, efficiently and professionally.

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

- 30 -