The Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia (WBA) will recognize Vanita Gupta as the 2025 WBA Woman Lawyer of the Year. Ms. Gupta served as Associate Attorney General of the United States from 2021 to 2024.
The Woman Lawyer of the Year Award recognizes a leader who has championed change in the profession by leading by example, advocating for justice, and promoting the advancement of women in the profession. The award will be presented at the organization’s Annual Dinner on Thursday, May 22, 2025, at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Ms. Gupta will be introduced by our 2024 Woman Lawyer of the Year, Ellen Jakovic, Of Counsel, Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Ms. Gupta is an experienced leader who has devoted her career to pursuing equal justice, strengthening democratic norms, and building safe communities at national organizations and in the federal government. As the 19th Associate Attorney General of the United States, Ms. Gupta was the first civil rights lawyer in a top three leadership position at the Department of Justice (DOJ). She oversaw high profile litigation matters including settlements that provided historic compensation for victims of mass gun violence (Charleston AME, Parkland, and Sutherland Springs); that changed federal law enforcement policies during mass demonstrations (Lafayette Square cases); and that provided continued reunification and services for parents and children separated at the southwest border, as well as limitations on family separations in the future (Ms. L v. ICE).
Other highlights of her tenure include the creation of a DOJ accreditation regime for police departments and a first-ever national law enforcement accountability database; the after-action assessment of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas; leading the Department’s efforts on reproductive rights after the Dobbs decision; civil litigation related to the opioids epidemic, Tribal justice, and environmental justice; expansion of the Department’s civil rights work, community violence intervention programs; and support for victims of gun violence and for law enforcement mental health and wellness.
Immediately prior to her time as Associate Attorney General, Gupta served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation’s oldest and largest coalition of non-partisan civil rights organizations in the United States. Under her leadership, the Leadership Conference Education Fund incubated a groundbreaking voting rights initiative, All Voting is Local, which works with state and local election administrators year-round to promote free and fair elections.
From 2014 to 2017, Ms. Gupta served as the head of the Civil Rights Division at the US Department of Justice, where she oversaw federal civil rights enforcement across a range of issues including fair housing, policing, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, and more. Prior to this, Ms. Gupta was deputy legal director and director of the Center for Justice at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she supervised litigation and built bipartisan coalitions advancing criminal justice reform while protecting public safety.
Ms. Gupta began her legal career as an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, where she successfully led the effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of 38 individuals in Tulia, TX, who were ultimately pardoned by Governor Rick Perry, and obtain a $6 million settlement on their behalf.
Ms. Gupta has served on the boards of nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. She appears regularly in the media, and has won numerous awards for her work. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and received her law degree from New York University School of Law, where she taught a civil rights litigation clinic for several years. Ms. Gupta is currently Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the New York University School of Law.