18th Annual ATHENA International Leadership Summit
Celebrating 30 Years of Leadership
Global ATHENA Leadership Award Recipient
 Laurel Bellows
President
American Bar Association
Laurel Bellows, a principal of The Bellows Law Group, P.C. in Chicago, represents executives in the United States and internationally. Laurel is an experienced
business lawyer counseling senior executives and corporations on employment
matters, employment and severance agreements, executive compensation and
workplace disputes. Her expertise in executive compensation matters also
includes mid-level management compensation and benefit plans, and matters
involving incentives, pensions, retirement and workforce restructuring.
Bellows is currently president of the American Bar Association. Her
one-year term as president began at the conclusion of the ABA Annual Meeting in
August 2012. She has served as chair of the association’s policymaking House of
Delegates (2006-2008), the second highest elected office in the ABA. Bellows has also
served as chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, and as a
member of the ABA Board of Governors, where she chaired the Finance Committee.
She was also president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents and chair
of its Metropolitan Bar Caucus, ABA
affiliates.
Bellows’ work in the law and her community has been recognized by many
publications. Crain’s Chicago Business lists Bellows among its annual
list of Power Players; in 2006, she was named one of the 28 Power Lawyers in
the City by Chicago Magazine; she was cited as one of Chicago’s 100
Women of Influence in 1996, also by Crain’s Chicago Business; and
Bellows was listed among Working Mother Magazine’s 25 Most Influential
Working Mothers in the country in 1997.
Bellows has been on the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on the
Administration of Justice, and on the U.S. Senate Judicial Nominations
Commission for Illinois.
She has served as chair of the Chicago Network, a networking organization of
diverse, professional women in the Chicago
area. Bellows was the second female president of the 22,000-member Chicago Bar
Association where she founded the Women’s Alliance.
She is admitted and qualified as an attorney and counselor of the Supreme
Court of the United States
and is a mediator, certified through the Institute for Conflict Management.
Bellows is licensed to practice in Illinois, Florida and California.
A graduate of the University
of Pennsylvania and
Loyola University School of Law, Bellows has practiced law for more than 30
years. She practices law with her husband, Joel, in Chicago. They have four children and four
grandchildren.
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