ABA Forum on Franchising Presents Rudnick Award to Judith Bailey

This posting was written by John W. Arden.

Phoenix franchise attorney Judith Bailey is the 2012 recipient of the Lewis G. Rudnick Award, the ABA Forum on Franchising’s “lifetime achievement award” for franchise attorneys. The award was presented today during the group’s 35th annual meeting in Los Angeles.

Besides having a long and distinguished career as a franchise lawyer, Bailey served the Forum in many capacities for many years. She was the first woman to serve on the group’s governing committee and was instrumental in the formation of the women’s caucus. Today, women make up 50 percent of the governing committee, and members of the women’s caucus represent one-third of the entire membership of the Forum, according to Joseph Fittante, Chair of the Forum on Franchising.

Bailey attended every annual meeting from 1979 through her retirement in 2005 and helped create the Fundamentals of Franchising mini-program, which has become a “core curriculum” of the Forum, Fittante said.

The Rudnick Award was created in 2009 in remembrance of Lewis Rudnick, a founding member of the Forum and its second chair, who died in January 2009. He helped establish the Franchise Law Journal, the Forum’s quarterly publication. As senior partner of Rudnick & Wolfe (currently DLA Piper), he trained several generations of some of America’s leading franchise lawyers.

The Award is intended to honor those who have made substantial contributions to the Forum and to franchise law as a discipline, while comporting themselves in accordance with Lew Rudnick’s high standards of professionalism.

Previous Rudnick Awards were presented to John R.F. Baer of Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C.; Rupert M. Barkoff of Kilpatrick Townsend; and Andrew C. Selden of Briggs & Morgan.

The Forum on Franchising also conferred its Young Leadership Award on Alexander Tuneski of Kilpatrick Townsend in Atlanta for his work with the Newcomer’s/Young Lawyer’s Division events, the Forum service projects, and Franchise Law Journal.