Lane County Women Lawyers is pleased to announce the recipient of its 7th Annual Chief Justice Martha Walters Award, Jodie Mooney!
Jodie Mooney, Chief Legal and Risk Officer at St. Charles Health System, and Oregon Court of Appeals Senior Judge, made her way to Oregon from Wisconsin, graduating from the University of Oregon Law School in 1988. After 17 years of practice as a trial attorney defending medical and hospital negligence claims, Jodie spent 7 years in-house at PeaceHealth as the Director of Risk Management. Then after 24 years of practice, in August 2011, Jodie was appointed to the Lane County Circuit Court. Her time as a trial judge included assignment to the Juvenile Court where she made a difference by shepherding a youth mental health summit and revamping the processes and procedures Lane County used to review guardianship cases where human error had allowed cases to slip through the cracks. She sought appointment to the Court of Appeals because she loves to write and was successful in May of 2019 where she served until retirement in October 2024. Like many members of the LGBTQIA2+ community who sought to create a safe and positive home for themselves, Jodie and her wife found a community that was built on millions of small, daily acts of visible existence that took courage and risked danger. During her time on the Oregon Court of Appeals, Jodie authored In the Matter of Hollister, 305 Or App 368 (2020) which requires courts to affirm a person’s gender identity whether male, female or non-binary. Jodie, along with many other LGBTQIA2+ judges and attorneys in Oregon created an invisible but inescapable gravitational pull that bent the history arc of our profession and state in the direction of greater opportunities and more equal justice.
The Chief Justice Martha Walters Award presentation will be held November 21, 2025, 11:45am-1:00pm, at the Gordon Hotel. Registration is open now at https://membership.oregonwomenlawyers.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=286 LCWL encourages early registration as this event has sold out in past years.
Please join LCWL thanking the underwriter’s for this year’s event:
Lady Justice Underwriter
Scales of Justice Underwriters
Social Justice Underwriter
Information about the history of the award can be found here.
