Jill Friedman: 2016 Legacy Award Recipient & Women's Advocate

In this Simply Delicious Living PODCAST, Host Maryann Ridini Spencer speaks with Jill Friedman, the 2016 Legacy Award Winner and NAWBO Ventura Board Member about her advocacy for women and women's issues.

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Jill Friedman, NAWBO Ventura Board Member and a successful civil litigation attorney dedicated to social justice and the advancement of women and minorities in the legal profession, receives the “Legacy Award” from Women Lawyers of Ventura County (WLVC) at its annual dinner on September 15, 2016, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Museum of Ventura County. Jill will also be the keynote speaker.

Jill receives this prestigious honor, in part, for her dedication to social justice and the advancement of women and minorities in the legal profession. While serving as a two-term President of WLVC (2011 and 2012), Jill noticed a distinct lack of diversity among the judicial officers in Ventura County. As a result, she was instrumental in organizing the leaders of other bar association groups to form the Ventura County Diversity Bar Alliance (VCDBA), which is committed to the empowerment of women, people of color, and those historically disenfranchised in the legal profession, through education and advocacy in order to promote equal justice for our community and achieve excellence and diversity in our legal profession.

Jill is also responsible for forging a lasting relationship between WLVC and Girls, Inc., (including a program at the Juvenile Justice Complex in Oxnard where women lawyers work with incarcerated girls on a monthly basis assisting them with education, money matters, confidence building, and practical life skills).

In addition to being a crusader of women’s rights, Jill also holds the prestigious position of being named the first female partner of the law firm of Myers, Widders, Gibson, Jones & Feingold. She works as a successful trial lawyer and civil litigation attorney in the areas of business, employment, real estate, and personal injury..

Previous to her Legacy Award honor, the Pacific Coast Business Times named Jill as one of the “Top 50 Women in Business” and “Who's Who in Attorneys,” and Legal publisher Martindale-Hubbell named her as one of “Los Angeles's Women Leaders in the Law.”

Upon law school graduation in 1987, Jill first started practicing in Ventura County. In 1990, she served as President of Ventura County Barristers, and the following year Jill was named Vice-President of the California Young Lawyers Association. In 1993, Jill returned to her hometown of Santa Barbara to take care of her terminally ill mother, and during her 17 years of legal practice in Santa Barbara, she held a number of bar leadership positions, including President of Santa Barbara Women Lawyers. She returned to Ventura County in 2010 after raising her three children.

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Find out more about the September 15, 2016 Women Lawyers of Ventura County (WLVC) dinner event, click here.

Find out more about Jill and Meyers, Widders, Gibson, Jones & Feingold, LLP: mwgjlaw.com

Visit NAWBO Ventura: nawbovc.org