Diane P. Wood (left) and Roberta Cooper Ramo
The Distinguished Service Award was presented to Roberta Cooper Ramo of Modrall Sperling on Tuesday, May 23 by ALI Director Diane P. Wood. The award is given from time to time to a member who over many years has played a major role in the Institute as an institution, by accepting significant burdens as an officer, Council member, committee chair, or project participant and by helping keep the Institute on a steady course.
Ramo has been an active member of ALI for more than 30 years. Elected to the Council in 1997, she served as First Vice President before being elected the first woman President of the Institute in 2008.
During her nine years as President, she brought a focus on diversity to ALI’s membership and Council election process, effectively bringing more women, minorities, and breadth of practice to the organization. As President, she is also credited with inspiring confidence and participation from all members of the Institute and collegiality through some of the most complex and controversial project discussions.
Her Presidency saw 14 projects completed and 20 projects initiated; Ramo was a driving force behind the first-ever Restatement of American Indian Law. Having oversight on all projects, she often attended project sessions, and never missed a Council or Annual Meeting. As a member of several nonprofit boards, she also lends her expertise as an Adviser on Restatement of the Law, Charitable Nonprofit Organizations.
In her private practice at Modrall Sperling, she works in the areas of arbitration, mediation, business law, real estate, probate, and estate planning. She often is called on to assist corporations with their strategic and long-term legal planning, an area in which she has particular expertise.
In 2015, Ramo received the American Bar Association’s highest award, the ABA Medal. She previously served as president of the American Bar Association from 1995 to 1996, the first woman in history to lead the largest nationwide organization of attorneys. In 2011, she was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, adding her name to a prestigious list of members including George Washington and Albert Einstein, among other notables.
A Fellow of both the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and the American Bar Foundation, she also has served as a panel member for the American Arbitration Association. In 2013, she was elected Board Chair of Think New Mexico, a non-partisan think tank, and she serves as a member of the Board of the Santa Fe Opera and Albuquerque Economic Development.
Ramo was appointed by the United States Senate and served as co-chair of a committee to review governance issues of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 2003. She was named an honorary member of the Bar of England and Wales, and of Gray’s Inn in 2000. She served on the Board of Regents for the University of New Mexico from 1989 to 1995, and as President of the Board from 1991 to 1993. She also served on the New Mexico Board of Finance.
Ramo earned her B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.