BEAUFORT, S.C. – The South Carolina Women Lawyers Association has named Mary Sharp as the 2019 recipient of its prestigious Jean Galloway Bissell Award.
The Beaufort attorney will be honored on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, with a reception at 1208 Washington Place (the corner of Washington and Main Streets) in Columbia. The reception begins at 6:00 p.m. Register for the event here: https://tinyurl.com/y483gknb
Jean Galloway Bissell (1936-1990) was a trailblazer who paved the way for S.C. women lawyers in multiple fields. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from USC in 1956 and graduated magna cum laude, first in her USC School of Law Class in 1958, where she was also associate editor and business manager of the South Carolina Law Review. In 1984, she became the first female South Carolina lawyer in a federal judgeship when she was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Selection criteria for the Jean Galloway Bissell Award include the nominee's distinguished and noteworthy service to the public and the legal profession; achievement of professional excellence; and participation in activities that have paved the way to success for women lawyers on the national, state or local level.
The first recipient of the award, in 1995, was former S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal. Others have included the late Honorable Matthew J. Perry of the U.S. District Court, and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Read more about the award here: https://www.scwla.org/bissell.php.
Mary Sharp has more than 20 years of experience representing individual and corporate clients in trial and appellate proceedings, and is AV-Preeminent Rated by Martindale-Hubbell. She also serves as a mediator.
A past president of the SCWLA, Mary has a strong history of advocating for the role of women in the legal profession. She has also served as president of the National Conference of Women's Bar Association.
She earned her juris doctorate from the Wake Forest University School of Law in 1993, and received a B.A. in business administration from North Carolina State University in 1990. She is also licensed in North Carolina.