Keynote speaker, Elizabeth Vargas

As an award-winning anchor and correspondent, Elizabeth Vargas has traveled the world covering breaking news stories, reporting in-depth investigations, and conducting newsmaker interviews. Currently the co-anchor of ABC’s 20/20 with David Muir, Vargas was credited by The New York Times for reinvigorating the newsmagazine format with her “intellectually brave” reporting.

During the historic Iraqi elections in December 2005, she reported extensively for World News Tonight from Baghdad on both civilian life in Iraq and American military involvement there. She has interviewed leaders from around the world, including President Bush from the Oval Office in the White House. Vargas has also anchored ABC News coverage of live, breaking stories, including the deaths of President Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Hurricane Katrina’s devastation from the U.S. Gulf Coast. Vargas won an Emmy in 2000 for Outstanding Instant Coverage of a News Story for anchoring live coverage of the Elian Gonzalez case.
 

Hortense Ward Courageous Leader Awardee, Roberta Liebenberg

The Center for Women in Law is pleased to honor Bobbi Liebenberg with the Hortense Ward Courageous Leader Award.  The Award honors the legacy and achievements of the Honorable Hortense Sparks Ward (1872-1944), an accomplished lawyer, suffragist, and champion of women’s rights in Texas in the early 1900s.

Roberta Liebenberg, a senior partner at Fine, Kaplan and Black, concentrates her practice on class actions, antitrust, complex commercial litigation and criminal antitrust defense. She has defended major corporations in antitrust class actions, and has also been appointed as Lead Counsel by a number of courts to represent plaintiff classes, including the Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation, which is the largest pending antitrust class action in the country. Ms. Liebenberg has held leadership roles in numerous organizations focused on the advancement of women lawyers and has played a key role in countless national initiatives to increase diversity in the legal profession, on corporate boards, and in society at large.

View photos from the 2018 CWIL Award Luncheon here.