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The Lawyers Club Icon Award, established in 2008, is given to an individual who epitomizes success and innovation and whose efforts leave a legacy. The Icon Award is earned by someone who shows exceptional achievement furthering the advancement of women in the law and society and honors those who have continued to make meritorious contributions to society throughout his/her/their life, and who share Lawyers Club’s values of justice, inclusion and progress. 2025 Icon - hon. m. margaret mckeown From time to time, Lawyers Club recognizes exceptional achievement by individuals furthering the advancement of women in the law and society. The Icon Award, established in 2008 and bestowed on only 10 prior recipients, honors an individual who epitomizes success and innovation, has continued to make contributions to society throughout life, shares Lawyers Club’s values of justice, inclusion, and progress, and whose efforts leave a legacy. This year’s recipient, the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown, embodies the spirit of the Icon Award. McKeown pursued law, in part, because her college internship with a senior U.S. Senator made her wonder “why boys worked on policy while girls worked in the mail room.” She earned her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1975 and began her career at Perkins Coie in Seattle. McKeown excelled as a trial and appellate attorney, litigating intellectual property, antitrust, and constitutional law issues, and representing high-profile clients, including Boeing, Amazon.com, and Nintendo of America. Believing in public service, McKeown’s pro bono contributions in civil rights included working on sex discrimination, privacy, and strip search cases, and serving as lead counsel in a case challenging the Rotary Club’s policy excluding women. McKeown transformed Perkins Coie as a workplace for women. She was the firm’s first female partner, the first woman on the executive committee, and the first female managing director. She also started the intellectual property practice, created the formal part-time lawyer program, and co-founded the D.C. office. Beyond leading by example, McKeown has supported the advancement of female attorneys through her work in the legal community. She is a founder and was the first co-president of the statewide Washington Women Lawyers and was the first woman to serve as president of the Federal Bar Association of the Western District of Washington and Washington state’s delegation to the ABA House of Delegates. The National Law Journal recognized McKeown as one of “The Fifty Most Influential Women Lawyers.” McKeown was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1998. Recognized as a brilliant and fair jurist, she also made significant contributions to the federal judiciary. As just one example of her leadership and good judgment, when sexual harassment and #MeToo hit the judiciary in December 2017, Chief Judge Thomas tasked McKeown with responding on behalf of the Ninth Circuit. With a small working group, McKeown engaged in extensive outreach in the Ninth Circuit and worked quickly to revise the confidentiality and employment dispute policies, and to create the first-ever Director of Workplace relations, which became the framework for the national model. The Chief Justice then appointed her to the National Workplace Conduct Group. McKeown has worked to advance equal rights for women throughout her life. She served on the first federal Gender Bias Committee, has been on the board of the International Association of Women Judges, and has given scores of speeches and participated in countless panels on leadership, the glass ceiling, and challenges facing women in the law. For her long-standing commitment to equal rights, the ABA awarded her the Margaret Brent Woman of Achievement Award. McKeown sees this Icon Award as “an expression of the amazing work that Lawyers Club does both in terms of promoting equal rights generally and enhancing women in the profession.” Acknowledging those who fought in the trenches before her, McKeown said this award “represents a group endeavor” and “a constellation of women beyond [her].” In celebration of past achievements, McKeown chaired the ABA 19th Amendment Commission and created a cookbook of legal luminaries, paying homage to the suffragists’ use of cookbooks to promote their cause. Looking forward, McKeown advised that while we are often counseled to “lean in,” to her that suggests leaning in for yourself. Rather, she practices and encourages “leaning down and lifting up” those who follow. She has been a close mentor to an Afghan judge who fled the Taliban. McKeown emphasized she is relying on those who follow “to keep up the good fight and realize how important it is to never rest just on our history.” Lawyers Club’s values of justice, inclusion, and progress are ever so important now when the judiciary is in a fragile state in terms of confidence, respect, and independence. “This is the time for lawyers to speak up and speak out,” said McKeown. As a true icon, she plans to continue the work for and will undoubtedly continue to make legacy contributions to the advancement of women in the law and society, the integrity of the legal profession, and the good of society as a whole. Past Recipients |
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2021 Icon - Dr. Shirley N. Weber |
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