The Connecticut Law Tribune is pleased to announce the winners of Distinguished Leader honors in the publication's annual Professional Excellence Awards. The following attorneys were nominated by their peers and selected by a panel to be this year's honorees, who will be celebrated at the annual Connecticut Legal Awards Dinner Oct. 3 at the Bond Room in Hartford:

Lewis Chimes

On March 24, 2016, a Connecticut jury awarded the largest race discrimination verdict in either state or federal court in Connecticut—$3.4 million. The case, won by attorney Lewis Chimes, whose law office is in Stamford, involved Yosif Bakhit, a black Sudanese Muslim immigrant who was granted political asylum here. He became a U.S. citizen and, in 2008, got a job as a laborer at Safety Marking, a company that painted lines on highways.