OCBA members L. Song Richardson, dean of UCI Law, Casey Johnson, a partner at Aitken * Aitken * Cohn LLP, and OCBA Board Member Rick McNeil, a partner at Crowell & Moring LLP, were received the 2018 “Be The Change” Legal Excellence Award at the 2nd Annual Diversity & Inclusion Unity in Service Celebration. This award recognizes “outstanding legal jurists, scholars, legal professionals and changemakers who possess courage, compassion, leadership, decisiveness, kindness, strength, open-mindedness, freedom from bias and a commitment to equity, equality and justice for all.”

Member Karina Gutierrez, a Human Rights Attorney at UC Immigrant Legal Services Center, also received the 2018 Courage Award.

The event was hosted by Crowell & Moring LLP and Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law. In addition to the OCBA and OCBA Diversity Committee. the celebration was also sponsored by Thurgood Marshall Bar, Diversity & Social Justice Forum, OC Lavender Bar, Hispanic Bar of OC, Veterans Legal Institute, OC Asian American Bar, Iranian American Bar, OC Women Lawyers, Muslim Bar of So CA, Filipino-American Bar of OC, American Constitution Society, OCBA-YLD, OC Equality Coalition, OC-Coalition for Diversity in the Law, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-OC, UCI Law, Western State College of Law, Whittier Law School, Vietnamese American Bar So Ca, OC Korean American Bar, J. Reuben Clark Law Society.