National Bar Association Honors Marilyn Holifield With Gertrude E. Rush Award

MIAMI – April 19, 2012 - Holland & Knight partner Marilyn Holifield will be presented with the Gertrude E. Rush Award at the National Bar Association's Awards Dinner on April 19 in Tampa, Fla.

Named for the only woman co-founder of the Association, the award recognizes recipients for their pioneering spirits, community and professional leadership, concern for human and civil rights, and for being a model of excellence in legal education.

Other 2012 honorees include former NFL Head Coach, Tony Dungy; former General Counsel of Florida A&M University (and brother of Marilyn), Bishop C. Holifield; Charter Member NBA Women Lawyers Division, The Honorable Alice A. Bonner; Florida judges, The Honorable Karla Foreman Wright and The Honorable Mary S. Scriven; and International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Carolyn House Stewart.

Originally from Tallahassee, Florida, where she was one of three black students to desegregate the city’s Leon High School, Marilyn Holifield became the first black woman partner of a major Florida law firm in 1986. Ms. Holifield is a partner in Holland & Knight's Miami office and is considered to be one of America’s top employment lawyers.

Ms. Holifield currently serves on Board of Trustees of the University of Miami, Executive Committee of the Harvard Alumni Association and Co-chairs the Harvard Alumni Association's Global Month of Service. She has served as a member of the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association and the Executive Council of Florida Bar Labor and Employment Section. In 2011 she received the Anti-Defamation League's Jurisprudence Award.

Founded in 1925, the National Bar Association is the nation’s oldest and largest national network of minority attorneys and judges. It represents approximately 20,000 lawyers, judges, law professors and law students and has over 80 affiliate chapters throughout the United States and around the world.