THE NEW HAMPSHIRE Women’s Bar Association held its Annual Fall Reception, its first formal meeting of the 2001-2002 year, on Oct. 4 at the Centennial Inn in Concord. At the reception, attorneys Cathy Green and Mary Susan Leahy were honored as this year’s recipients of the Women’s Bar Association’s Marilla M. Ricker Achievement Award. The award is named for Marilla Marks Ricker, the first woman admitted to the New Hampshire Bar.

The Ricker Award, in its second year, is given annually to women lawyers who have achieved professional excellence, paved the way to success for other women lawyers, advanced opportunities for women in the legal profession or performed exemplary public service on behalf of women. Last year’s recipients were Hon. Susan B. Carbon and attorney and current NH Bar President-Elect Martha Van Oot.

Green is a 1977 graduate of Franklin Pierce Law Center and was admitted to the NH Bar the same year. She began her legal career with the New Hampshire Public Defender’s Office, where she worked from 1977 to 1980. She then went into private practice representing criminal defendants. She is currently a partner with Green & Utter, Manchester.

Green has been president of the NH Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers since 1989 and is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She has served on the board of directors of NH Public Defender since 1992 and on various NH Bar committees. She was named a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers earlier this year.

In naming Green one of this year’s winners of the Ricker Award, the Women’s Bar said, "Attorney Green’s professionalism and excellence in the practice of law has served to inspire many new attorneys, among them women who are increasingly entering the field of criminal defense practice."

Mary Susan Leahy earned her law degree from Boston University School of Law in 1970 and was admitted to the NH Bar that year. She served as a law clerk at the New Hampshire Supreme Court until 1971. She joined the law firm of Orr & Reno in 1971, and has advanced there to become president and chief executive officer of the firm. She is currently chair of Orr & Reno’s trust department. "Attorney Leahy entered the practice of corporate law at a time when few, if any, women attorneys did so," wrote the Women’s Bar in announcing her as a winner of the Ricker Award.

Leahy has been involved in numerous community and charitable organizations, including the NH Charitable Foundation, the Hitchcock Alliance, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, Capital Center for the Arts and many others. She was instrumental in organizing Dress for Success New Hampshire, an organization that provides interview and work-appropriate clothing for women entering or re-entering the workforce. She also served as a governor-at-large for the NH Bar from 1976 through 1979.

For membership or other information about the NH Women’s Bar, contact the group’s secretary, Heather Krans, at 228-1109, its membership secretary, Christine Fillmore, at 226-2600, or any other members of the NHWBA Board of Directors.

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