Chief Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the U. S. District Court for the
Western District of Wisconsin received the Wisconsin Law Alumni
Association’s Distinguished Service Award at the annual dinner of
the Benchers Society on Friday, November 6, 2009.
Judge Crabb is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law
School's Class of 1962.
The Distinguished Service Award is the UW Law School’s highest
recognition for alumni and faculty. It honors outstanding service
to the legal profession in private practice, government service, or
legal education.
Judge Crabb was appointed as a district judge in November 1979 by
President Jimmy Carter, then served as the court’s chief from
1980 to 1996 and again from 2001 to the present. She announced in
March 2009 that she will take senior status from the court,
continuing to try cases but on a reduced basis.
Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Judge Crabb received her
undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Before her service on the bench, she was in private law practice
with the Madison firm of Roberts, Boardman, Suhr, & Curry. Her
numerous professional activities have included co-chairing the
American Bar Association Joint Committee on Judicial Discipline
Procedures and the Seventh Circuit Judicial Council Committee on
Gender Bias and serving on the three-judge international team
teaching Principles of Judicial Independence to judges in Shanghai.
The Benchers Society, whose annual dinner was the occasion for the
presentation, is a group of the Law School’s most committed
donors, established in 1963.
This article appears in the categories: Articles
