American Bar Association Honors Celia Roady with Vanguard Award for Nonprofit Contributions

WASHINGTON, DC, June 17, 2026: The Nonprofit Organizations Committee of the American Bar Association (ABA), Business Law Section, has honored former Morgan Lewis partner Celia Roady with its 2026 Vanguard Award. The award is given each year to a lawyer in recognition of their lifetime commitment to and impact on the nonprofit sector.

Celia led Morgan Lewis’s tax-exempt practice from July 1994 until her retirement as partner in January 2026, and continues to advise charitable organizations. During her storied career, she helped shape the development of several rules and counseled many of the world’s largest foundations and charitable institutions on the structuring of complex grants, program-related investments, joint ventures, and collaboration arrangements. She also represented tax-exempt organizations in IRS audits as well as in seeking agency rulings and determinations, and helped develop multiple key statutes affecting tax-exempt organizations and charitable endeavors.

An active member of the legal community, Celia served a two-year term as vice chair of communications for the ABA Section on Taxation and is a former ABA Tax Section council member and former chair of the exempt organizations committee. Celia was also appointed by the IRS to be a member of its Advisory Committee on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities from 2010 to 2013. For more than 30 years, Celia chaired the Georgetown University Law Center’s annual Representing and Managing Tax-Exempt Organizations Conference.

Celia, along with other nonprofit lawyers honored by the ABA, will be recognized in early September at the Nonprofit Organizations Committee meeting taking place during the ABA Business Law Fall Meeting in Chicago.