One of the Women's White Collar Defense Association's four newly established, annual awards is named in honor of Cathy O'Neil, who was a partner in King & Spalding's special matters and government investigations practice. O'Neil died of pancreatic cancer last year at age 53.

The Catherine O'Neil Mentoring Award commemorates O'Neil's “enthusiasm, optimism and dedication to mentoring lawyers,” according to the WWCDA. Intended for a junior white-collar practitioner, the award includes a $2,500 continuing education stipend that will be funded by King & Spalding and its partners for a decade.

“We are extremely honored that this award was created to recognize Cathy's work to benefit  lawyers early in their careers,” said King & Spalding's chairman, Robert Hays. “Cathy was always generous with her time, developing and encouraging others both in her special matters practice and throughout the firm.”

Before joining King & Spalding as a partner in 2006, O'Neil worked as a federal prosecutor in Atlanta, handling high-profile drug gang cases, then became the head of the Justice Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in Washington.

O'Neil had been the leader of the WWCDA's Atlanta chapter. The group, which has 1,400 members in 35 chapters in the U.S. and abroad, was founded 20 years ago to address the large gender gap in white-collar law by providing women with networking, business development and educational opportunities.

The WWCDA will present the Catherine O'Neil Mentoring Award at its inaugural awards event  next fall in Washington. The other awards it has established are the Champion Award, the Group Award and the Laurie A. Miller Leadership Award for the Advancement of Women in White Collar Defense.

The deadline for nominations is July 1, 2019, and a nomination form can be found at wwcda.org/awards and sent to [email protected].