EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The Bowditch Institute for Women's Success
Lauren Stiller Rikleen is a senior partner in the Real Estate and Environmental Law Practice Group of Bowditch & Dewey. Lauren has a diverse environmental law practice emphasizing negotiation, enforcement and compliance issues. She is also an experienced mediator.
As the founder and Executive Director of the Bowditch Institute for Women’s Success, Lauren combines her unique qualifications and expertise to help law firms and other business organizations create an environment where women can succeed.
She is the author of Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law, a book about the institutional impediments to the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession.
Attorney Rikleen is listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA America’s Leading Business Lawyers, and Massachusetts Super Lawyers. Among her many honors, Lauren is the recipient of the 2007 Barbara Gray Humanitarian Award from Voices Against Violence, the Boston College Law School 2004 Alumni Award for Excellence in Law, the Boston College Law School 75th Anniversary Alumni Award, and from the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, the 2005 Lelia J. Robinson Award, so named in honor of the first practicing woman attorney in the Commonwealth.
In August 2005, Lauren was appointed by the President of the American Bar Association to the twelve-member ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.
As the former President of the Boston Bar Association, Lauren created the Task-Force on Professional Challenges and Family Needs, which produced a report entitled: Facing the Grail – Confronting the Costs of Work/Family Imbalance. She continues her advocacy of these issues through her involvement with the Massachusetts Equality Commission.
Lauren is a former Chair and current member of the Board of Directors of the Environmental League of Massachusetts and a member of the Board of Trustees of Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is also a founding member of the Council for Women of Boston College and a member of the Board of Trustees of Middlesex Savings Bank; the Boston Bar Foundation; and Discovering Justice, the James D. St. Clair Court Education Project. Lauren is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Within her community, Lauren is the first woman to have served as Chair of the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce. In 1997, the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce named her “Business Leader of the Year” and also granted her the Athena Award for professional excellence in 2001. The Boston Globe recognized her as one of “The Who’s Who of Top Women Lawyers” in 1995, and the Middlesex News named Lauren “Woman of the Year” in 1991. |