Snell & Wilmer Partner Barbara Dawson Honored with Walter E. Craig Distinguished Attorney Award

PHOENIX - June 10, 2013 - PRLog -- Snell & Wilmer is pleased to announce that Barb Dawson, a partner in the Phoenix office, is the 2013 recipient of the Walter E. Craig Distinguished Service Award. This annual award is given by the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education to the attorney who has manifested adherence to the highest principles and tradition of the legal profession and service to the public in the community in which he/she lives.

As a highly respected lawyer by her peers and clients, Dawson has a long record of service to her community. In 1991, she co-founded a legal clinic that provided legal services to HIV-positive persons and those affected by HIV. She organized and personally staffed this effort. She recruited attorneys from her firm and then from other firms, all while also securing financial support for the program. The HIV-AIDS Law Project (still alive today and housed within the Volunteer Lawyers Program) has impacted thousands of individuals.

In addition, Dawson spearheaded the ABA′s Judicial Internship Opportunity Program, which places economically disadvantaged and minority law students with summer judicial clerkships. The national program offers approximately 200 annual judicial internships each year.  Dawson led an effort to bring this program to Arizona as a way to assist “first generation” and diverse law students in our community.  Other accomplishments include serving as Board President for the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services and Education, as the Chair of the State Bar Association Legal Services Committee, on the Bar′s Access to Justice Task Force, as Chair of the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation. In 2009, Dawson was honored with the ATHENA Award – Business Woman of the Year by the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce.

At Snell & Wilmer, Dawson co-chairs the firm's commercial litigation practice group and its international practice group and serves on its multi-office executive committee. She has more than 20 years of experience representing companies in complex business litigation involving class actions, consumer and securities claims, tax issues and other matters adverse to governmental entities, earning her recognition in the “bet the company” category by Best Lawyers in America. Her litigation experience includes several wins before the Arizona Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Federal District Court, as well as service as a Judge Pro Tempore and mediator for the Maricopa County Superior Court.

Dawson recently completed a term as Chair of the Board of Directors for Lex Mundi, an international affiliation of 160 independent law firms located in 100 countries. She frequently assists boards of directors and companies with regulatory compliance issues and internal investigations often involving non-U.S. parties and venues.

About Snell & Wilmer L.L.P.

Founded in 1938, Snell & Wilmer is a full-service business law firm with more than 400 attorneys practicing in nine locations throughout the western United States and in Mexico, including Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; Los Angeles and Orange County, California; Denver, Colorado; Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Los Cabos, Mexico. The firm represents clients ranging from large, publicly traded corporations to small businesses, individuals and entrepreneurs. For more information, visit www.swlaw.com.