Marsha Simms is a former trustee of the Fund. She is a retired partner of the international law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP, where she practiced in the corporate department. Ms. Simms’ principal practice areas were bank finance and corporate debt restructuring. She had over 30 years of experience negotiating financings and restructurings for corporations in the retail, home fashions, art, telecommunications, and energy areas. Ms. Simms was recognized as a leading lawyer in the banking and finance field by Chambers Global and Chambers USA and was named as one of America’s Top Black Lawyers by Black Enterprise Magazine.
Ms. Simms continues to be active in the legal community. She was the recipient of the 2010 Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award, given by the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association to a woman who has cut through barriers to attain high accomplishment in business law. Ms. Simms was recently appointed to the ABA’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative Council and is also a former commissioner of ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession. She is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute.
Ms. Simms is also an active member of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where she was a co-chair of the board, and is a life trustee of WNET.ORG, New York’s public television station, where she chaired the audit committee.
Ms. Simms graduated from Barnard College and Stanford Law School. She is a former trustee of the Stanford Alumni Association, a former member of the Stanford Law School Board of Visitors and was a member of the Stanford Law School campaign steering committee.