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Notable Alumni

Each year, the Emory Law Alumni Awards recognize outstanding alumni who have achieved distinction in legal practice, teaching, research, or public administration and who have demonstrated distinguished service to Emory Law, the Emory Law Alumni Association, or Emory University.

Nominations

We welcome nominations throughout the year. To submit an alumni award nomination, click one of the following links:

2024 Distinguished Alumni Award

Established in 1985, the Distinguished Alumni Award is given to an alumna or alumnus who embodies the values of the school and has demonstrated extraordinary achievement in the legal profession and in service to society.

Lee P. Miller 82L

Lee P. Miller 82L
Lee P. Miller is regional director of Glenmede’s New York Metro region. In this role, she leads the Relationship Management team and oversees the day-to-day operations of this region. Miller also serves as a senior relationship manager and works with multigeneration families on wealth planning, family wealth education, and complex trusts.

An industry leader specializing in multigenerational wealth and legacy planning, trust administration, and philanthropy, Miller joined Glenmede as a founding member of the New York office.

Prior to joining Glenmede, Miller had served as a member of the Management Team of Threshold Group, a multifamily office, and previously as a managing director and senior fiduciary officer for US Trust’s Wealth Management Group.

Miller received her bachelor of arts degree, cum laude, in American history from the University of Pennsylvania, and her juris doctor degree at Emory University School of Law. She was sworn in at the US Supreme Court. Miller writes and lectures on a diverse range of trust and wealth management topics.

Miller is a member of the Board of Trustees of Emory University, a trustee of the Preservation League of New York State and serves on the Board of Governors of OFF the Record. She is an emerita docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she is a member of the Professional Advisory Council. In 2015, she was selected as one of the “50 Most Influential Women in Private Wealth” by Private Asset Management. Miller and her husband, Leslie Freedman, split their time between New York City, Connecticut and Montreal. They are new grandparents to a granddaughter who lives in Los Angeles.

2024 Alumni Service Award

The Alumni Service Award honors an alumna or alumnus who has contributed significant, sustained leadership and outstanding service to the Emory Law community.

Laurie Speed 99L

Laurie Speed 99L
In her 20 years as a litigator, one case inevitably stands out on Laurie Speed’s bio—an $11 million verdict against tobacco giant Phillip Morris on behalf of a double lung transplant client. But her smaller victories are important to her, too.

Speed has served as president of both the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers and the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association. In 2016 she received GAWL’s highest honor, the Kathleen Kessler Award, and in 2019 she received GTLA’s Lady of Justice Award. She is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, an invitation-only group that requires members to have tried a minimum of 10 civil jury trials to conclusion. She currently serves as that organization’s Georgia representative to the national board. Speed annually repeats on the Top 100 Georgia Super Lawyers and Top 50 Women Georgia Super Lawyers lists. In 2017, she opened her boutique litigation firm, Speed + King.

A double eagle (96C 99L), the former Emory Varsity Swim Team captain earned both All-American and All-Academic honors. She was Emory Law’s first Kessler-Eidson Scholar. After graduation, Speed started practice in Atlanta and never left. She’s served on the Emory Alumni Board and now with the Emory Atlanta Over 40 Network. A Kessler-Edison Program for Trial Techniques instructor, she fondly recalls attending an Emory Law swearing-in ceremony at the US Supreme Court where she met Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Despite two hip replacements, she’s still a swimmer and cyclist, but says her favorite pastime now is watching her 17-year-old daughter blow past her own collegiate swim times. 

2024 Eléonore Raoul Trailblazer Award

The Eléonore Raoul Trailblazer Award commemorates Eléonore Raoul 1920L, the first woman admitted to Emory University and a national leader in the women’s suffrage movement. It is given to an Emory Law alumna who has blazed a trail for others through her own professional and personal endeavors.

Mary C. Gill 83L

Mary C. Gill 83L
Mary C. Gill 83L’s legal career was driven by opportunity and determination. She was a rare 1L summer associate at Alston, Miller & Gaines, who returned as a 2L. After graduation, she joined the firm a few months after it became the powerhouse Alston & Bird. Seven years later, she was elected partner as a securities litigator.

During her career at Alston, she navigated complex business cases—including on the team that investigated the 2001 collapse of Enron, which generated a reported 40 million pages of documentary evidence, testimony from 300 witnesses, and billions of dollars in potential claims. Gill represented a wide range of businesses involved in healthcare, finance, banking and other Fortune 500s in cases where millions hung in the balance. Her clients were often public companies and financial institutions involved in enforcement actions brought by federal agencies including the SEC and the FDIC.

In 1983, Gill was one of two women in the firm’s litigation department and was a trailblazer for those who followed. She founded the firm’s Women’s Initiative and chaired the Alternative Career Path Task Force, which revised the firm’s reduced-hour policy. In 2012 she received Alston’s Diversity Leadership Award. She was elected to the Partners Committee, on which she served 2014-2018, including as chair in the last year. Gill is a staunch women’s ally, as evidenced by service on the boards of Planned Parenthood of Georgia and the Atlanta Women’s Foundation. She’s been on “Best Lawyers in America” lists since 2009. She recently celebrated 40 years of marriage to former Fulton County Public Defender and Woodward Academy teacher Dennis Kruszewski. Their family includes son Cory, his wife Katie, twin daughters Sydney and Kendall, and now a grandson, Oliver. Gill is an avid cyclist who’s toured Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, and is now plotting her next cycling trip to Sardinia.

2024 Young Alumni Award

The Young Alumni Award recognizes the professional and personal achievements of an alumna or alumnus who graduated within the past 15 years and has made notable leadership and service contributions to Emory Law and to the legal profession.

J. Martin Bunt 14L

J. Martin Bunt 14L
Martin Bunt is an associate in King & Spalding’s Washington, DC, office and is a member of the firm’s Special Matters and Government Investigations team. He focuses his practice on government investigations, internal investigations, white-collar criminal litigation, and compliance counseling for private companies and government agencies.

Prior to joining King & Spalding, Bunt served nine years as a Navy judge advocate and was stationed abroad at US Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory) and onboard USS JOHN C. STENNIS (CVN 74). His duties ranged from supervising criminal investigations and trying courts-martials to advising commanding officers on international agreements and responses to vessel collisions.

Bunt attended Emory Law from 2011 to 2014. He was a member of the Mock Trial Team and co-founded the Emory Law Volunteer Clinic for Veterans with fellow 14L, Rachel Erdman, Professor of Law Emeritus Charles Shanor, and retired King & Spalding Partner Lane Dennard. Bunt attended Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, where he played four years on the university’s Golf Team. He currently lives in Northern Virginia, with his wife, Dianna, and son, Parker.