Holland & Knight Partner Marilyn Holifield Receives Jurisprudence Award from the Anti-Defamation League

MIAMI – November 7, 2011 – Marilyn Holifield, a partner in the Miami office of Holland & Knight, was presented with the 2011 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Jurisprudence Award at a luncheon in her honor at the InterContinental Miami on November 3. Holifield joins an elite group of men and women who have received this prestigious honor over a span of more than two decades.

Originally from Tallahassee, Florida, where she was one of three black students to desegregate the city’s Leon High School, Holifield became the first black woman partner of a major Florida law firm in 1986. Today, she is considered to be one of America’s top employment lawyers and serves as an admirable role model for all.

Holland & Knight Managing Partner Steven Sonberg served as co-chair of the ADL Jurisprudence Award event. "Marilyn is a real hero in every sense of the word; a person whose life has embodied the values that the Anti-Defamation League is all about," said Sonberg.

Holland & Knight is a dedicated friend of the ADL through the firm’s commitment to the ADL's Summer Associate Research Program, diversity and the Holocaust Remembrance Project. Founding partner Chesterfield Smith (1917-2003) and partner Dan Pearson (1930-2003) are past recipients of the award.

The ADL Jurisprudence Award was established to recognize individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the legal profession and to the community at large, while exemplifying the principles upon which the Anti-Defamation League was founded – "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all." Honorees are saluted for their passion for excellence, high ethical and professional standards, dynamic leadership and social responsibility.