UDC: “We Are Black History” Annamaria Steward
UDC: “We Are Black History”
Annamaria Steward
UDC Law Associate Dean of Students – DC Bar President
For nearly 20 years, Annamaria Steward has actively served in voluntary bar associations and the mandatory bar association to advance the legal profession and benefit the greater community. She is currently the 45th president of the DC Bar, the second largest unified bar association in the country with more than 100,000 members. In 2010, she was elected president of the Bar Association of DC (BADC), the voluntary bar, and is the first African-American female president in that organization’s 145-year history.
Steward is also the Associate Dean of Students at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. Previously, she clerked for the Honorable Annice M. Wagner, then Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals, and was an associate at Jack H. Olender and Associates, P.C.
Since 2008, Steward has served as the Associate Dean, where she leads, develops, and oversees all aspects of law school student affairs in accordance with ABA standards. She also administers all special accommodations and major law school events (including Orientation and Graduation), and oversees student organizations. Annamaria also coaches the law school’s Oral Advocacy Team, which competes in American Bar Association (ABA) and American Association for Justice competitions.
The UDC David A. Clarke School of Law team has won numerous ABA Regional Client Counseling Competitions and competed, and placed well, in many final rounds of the ABA National Client Counseling Competition.
Steward is also very active in the legal community. Previously, she served as a Governor of the DC Bar, Secretary of the DC Bar, Assistant Secretary of the National Bar Association (the national African-American bar association), Secretary of the Washington Bar Association (the predominately African-American bar association of DC), Chair of the DC Bar Potential Leaders Sub-Committee (created the DC Bar John Payton Leadership Academy) of the Leadership Development Committee (Frederick B. Abramson Award 2013), Co-Chair of the Washington Bar Association Law Day Committee, member of the DC Bar Strategic Planning Committee (Best Bar Project 2010), member of the Maryland State Bar Association Young Lawyers Section’s Nominating Committee, and Chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the BADC.
As Chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the BADC, she held nearly 40 events focused on young lawyer education and community service and created a radio law clinic. Building on the success of the radio law clinic, Steward later created and hosted a weekly cable television show entitled “D.C. Law…Today,” which featured leaders of the D.C. legal profession and their legal and civic contributions.
She was awarded the BADC’s Young Lawyer of the Year award in 2006, and was a nominee for the ABA Young Lawyers Division’s 2007 National Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year award. Steward was one of 22 young lawyers nationwide selected to be a member of the ABA’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section’s 2007-2008 Leadership Academy. She received the 2011 Junius W. Williams Young Lawyer of the Year Award from the National Bar Association Young Lawyer’s Division, and was featured in the Washingtonian magazine on “The Guest List: A Monthly Roundup of People We’d Like to Have Over for Drinks, Food and Conversation” in 2011.
Steward was honored as one of the National Bar Association’s 2012 Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40; and received the Community Appreciation Award from the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of DC in 2015. In recognition of her “demonstrated outstanding dedication to the welfare of her community and to the highest principles of the legal profession,” Steward is among the less than 1 percent of lawyers in the District of Columbia selected to be a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
To learn more about about Annamaria Steward, follow the links below: https://www.dcbar.org/bar-resources/publications/washington-lawyer/articles/june-2016-meet-the-president.cfm