American Constitution Society Honors Dellinger with Lifetime Achievement Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC—June 9, 2020—O’Melveny partner Walter Dellinger was honored with the American Constitution Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes those who have “devoted their distinguished careers to ensuring that the law is a force to improve the lives of all people.”

The ACS presented Dellinger the award at its 2020 Virtual National Convention, held online last night. The organization also awarded its Progressive Champion Award to Tina Tchen, the president and CEO of Time’s Up, which is dedicated to ensuring a safe and more equitable work environment for all women.

Dellinger, a former acting US Solicitor General, Assistant Attorney General, and head of the Office of Legal Counsel who serves on the ACS Board of Advisors, was honored for his “lifelong dedication to realizing the promise of the US Constitution and its core values: genuine equality, liberty, justice, and the rule of law.”

“I’m really honored to receive this award from an organization that for two decades has been a national leader in advancing the constitutional values we hold dearest — equality, justice, individual liberty, and democracy — and protecting against the abuse of law and the concentration of power,” Dellinger said.

“There is no one more deserving of this award than Walter, who is the embodiment of our nation’s ideals,” said Bradley J. Butwin, chair of O’Melveny. “Our firm is better for his example, and we are proud and grateful to have the chance to work and learn alongside him.”

Dellinger is an influential authority on appellate and Supreme Court decisions, lending his government experience and decades of legal knowledge to amicus briefs, a multitude of pro bono clients, and public and private companies facing litigation that threatens their very survival. Dellinger, who formerly served as O’Melveny’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner, helped convince the US Supreme Court that proponents of Proposition 8, California’s 2008 ban on same-sex marriage, did not have standing to appeal a court order invalidating it. That ruling, Hollingsworth v. Perry, cleared the way for marriage equality in California and eventually nationwide.

Dellinger has written frequently on legal issues for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Slate and has appeared regularly on major television networks. (For several years, he also wrote every week about “Mad Men” for the Wall Street Journal.) The Douglas B. Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University, Dellinger was named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Lawyer.

The American Constitution Society is dedicated to upholding the US Constitution by building and leading a diverse legal community to advance and defend democracy, justice, equality, and liberty; to securing a government that serves the public interest; and to guarding against the abuse of law and the concentration of power.

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