Judy Perry Martinez

Judy Perry Martinez of Simon, Peragine, Smith & Redfearn in New Orleans became president of the American Bar Association in August 2019.

For more than 30 years, Martinez has held various leadership positions at the ABA, including as chair of the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which evaluates all prospective nominees to the federal bench. Earlier, she served as the ABA’s lead representative to the United Nations and as a member of the ABA Board of Governors and its executive committee. Later, she served as chair of the ABA Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services and, most recently, as a member of the ABA Task Force on Building Public Trust in the American Justice System.

Martinez has served 26 years in the ABA House of Delegates and served on the ABA Task Force on Attorney Client Privilege, the Council of the ABA Center on Diversity, and the council of the Section of Litigation. She also was a member of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and chair of the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence and the ABA Young Lawyers Division.

Martinez is a member of the board of directors of the American Bar Foundation, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Louisiana Bar Foundation, and a member of the American Law Institute.

Martinez has chaired the New Orleans Bar Association Young Lawyers Section, the New Orleans Pro Bono Project, the Louisiana State Bar Association Committee on Minority Involvement in its inaugural year, 1989, the LSBA Professionalism and Quality of Life Committee, and the LSBA Post-Conviction Death Penalty Representation Committee. She currently serves as a Distinguished Access to Justice Pro Bono Fellow for Southeast Louisiana Legal Services. She also serves on the board of the Innocence Project-New Orleans and as an officer of the World Justice Project.