40th Anniversary Past Presidents Fireside Chat

This year is the WBA Foundation's 40th Anniversary. Please join us for this community event to toast our past and future in this historic moment for the Foundation and for the women and girls in the DC Metro community who are supported by our grant programs.

Paulette Chapman (WBA president, 2003-2004; Partner, Koonz McKenney Johnson & DePaolis LLP) will moderate a panel of WBAF Presidents that spans our 40-year history and our impact in engaging women lawyers and law students to advance equity and justice for low-income women and girls in metro DC. Our panelists are:

Marjorie O'Connell, WBAF president, 1981-1983; Principal, O'Connell & Associates

Hon. Deborah Israel, WBAF president, 1996-1998; Associate Judge, DC Superior Court

Ellen Jakovic, WBAF president, 2006-2008; Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Nancy Long, WBAF president, 2014-2016; Associate Counsel, American Association of University Professors

Bridget Bailey Lipscomb, WBAF president, 2018-2020; WBA president-elect, 2020-2021

The event will include a mixology class break* for a "Spicy Harris" in honor of the new Vice President of the United States.

*Mixologist Alla Polyakova lives in Washington, DC and works with Derek Brown teaching cocktail classes at the Columbia Room - a cocktail bar that has garnered national praise and was named the Best American Cocktail bar at Tales of the Cocktails in 2017. Alla came to love mixology when she met Charles Joly in 2008 in a small Chicago bar. This world-recognized bartender taught her how to mix a proper drink and encouraged her understanding of flavors and cocktail history. Since then, Alla has earned her MBA and works in the DC policy world while staying closely connected to the hospitality industry teaching of cocktail classes, in mixology podcasts, and honing her bartending skills at home and at bars around the city.