5/20/2020 Biography · Nancy Duff Campbell · ABA Women Trailblazers Project
https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/nancy-duff-campbell/biography 1/3

BIOGRAPHY
Nancy Duff Campbell is a founder and Co-President of the
National Women’s Law Center, one of the nation’s pre-eminent
women’s rights organizations. A recognized expert on women’s
law and public policy issues, for over forty years Ms. Campbell
has participated in the development and implementation of key
legislative initiatives and litigation protecting women’s rights, with
a particular emphasis on issues affecting low-income women and
their families.
Ms. Campbell’s accomplishments include participation in
successful Supreme Court litigation establishing that two-parent
families with unemployed mothers are entitled to AFDC benefits,
in Califano v. Westcott; counsel in Haffer v. Temple University, the
first case to successfully challenge an entire intercollegiate
athletic program on sex discrimination grounds; organization and
leadership of the Coalition on Women and Taxes, whose analyses
and advocacy led to expanded tax assistance for single heads of
household and the removal of six million low income families from
the tax rolls in the Tax Reform Act of 1986; counsel in Parents
Without Partners v. Massinga, which established a uniform right to
child support enforcement services for all custodial parents
without regard to income; a central role in drafting and pressing a
national agenda on child care, which culminated in passage in 1990 of the first comprehensive child care
legislation since World War II and several improvements in the succeeding years; and advocacy to achieve
congressional legislation and Department of Defense policies expanding the rights and remedies of military
women facing sexual harassment, unfair family policies, and stereotyped limitations on their jobs and ability to
serve in combat. She is also the author of numerous articles on women’s legal issues.
Ms. Campbell has been named by Working Woman magazine as one of the top 25 heroines whose actions
over the last 25 years have advanced women in the workplace, one of 21 Leaders for the 21 Century by
Women’s eNews, a Woman of Genius by Trinity Washington University, and the 2010 Woman Lawyer of the Year
NANCY DUFF CAMPBELL
Oral History
Biography
Photo Gallery
st
Home Browse Oral Histories About Contact Us
5/20/2020 Biography · Nancy Duff Campbell · ABA Women Trailblazers Project
https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/nancy-duff-campbell/biography 2/3
by the District of Columbia Women’s Bar Association. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services for her work to improve child support enforcement and was
appointed by Congress to the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare, to study and make
recommendations on a range of issues, including child support, custody and visitation; family services; and
family and juvenile court systems. She was the only North American representative to the 2009 United Nations
Conference on the Implications for Women of the Global Financial Crisis and was appointed by the Secretary of
Defense to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. She is the recipient of the District of
Columbia Bar’s William J. Brennan Award, in recognition of her exemplary legal career dedicated to service in
the public interest; Barnard College of Columbia University’s Millicent Carey McIntosh Award; and the Center
for Law and Social Policy’s 25th Anniversary Award. She has been recognized by her law school as an “NYU
Alumnus/Alumna of the Month” and by Online Colleges as one of “20 Influential Female Lawyers Every Law
Student Should Know.” She has been selected for inclusion in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American
Women, Who’s Who in American Law, the American Bar Association’s Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral
History Project, Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975, Uncommon Women and Wikipedia. She has
served on the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors, including its Executive Committee, as well as
numerous other boards, and currently is a member of the Princeton University Center for Research on Child
Wellbeing Advisory Board, Alliance for National Defense Board of Advisors, and Institute for Women’s Policy
Research Board of Advisors. She is also a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Ms. Campbell received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College of Columbia University in 1965 and
her law degree from New York University School of Law in 1968. Prior to her work with the National Women’s
Law Center, she was a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Catholic University School of
Law in Washington, D.C. and an attorney with the Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law (now the National
Center for Law and Economic Justice) in New York City.
Her professional excellence is reflected in the many professional appointments and honors she has received.
She was appointed by Congress to the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare and was the principal
editor of the Commission’s 1996 report recommending ways to improve the determination of child custody and
visitation issues, several of which have been adopted. She was appointed by the Secretary of Defense to the
Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and was named the sole North American
representative to the United Nations’ Conference on the Implications for Women of the Global Financial Crisis.
She has received the District of Columbia Women’s Bar Association Woman Lawyer of the Year Award, the
District of Columbia Bar’s William J. Brennan, Jr. Award for her “exemplary legal career dedicated to service in
the public interest,” Barnard College’s Millicent McIntosh Award for Feminism, Trinity Washington University’s
Woman of Genius Award, and the Center for Law and Social Policy’s 25th Anniversary Award. She has also
been named by Working Woman magazine one of the Top 25 Heroines for Working Women in the Last 25
Years, by Women’s eNews as one of 21 Leaders for the 21 Century, and has received a Lifetime Achievement
Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for her “untiring efforts on behalf of the
children of America.”
Influencing Women to Pursue Legal Careers; Opening Doors and Advancing Opportunities for Women
Lawyers. Ms. Campbell’s decades of work to advance the cause of women and their families have led to legal
rights and public policies that have enriched the lives of virtually every woman in this country, including women
lawyers. Young girls’ ability to pursue any area of study, women’s ability to secure child care in order to
participate in the labor force, older women’s retirement security, and many other advancements that benefit
women in the profession are the result of her dedication and legal skills. In recognition of this, she was recently
named one of 20 Influential Female Lawyers Every Law Student Should Know by Online Colleges.
Her commitment to advancing women lawyers has had a profound effect on countless numbers of women in
the profession in other ways as well. At the CSWPL, in her four years of full-time law school teaching, and at
NWLC, she has worked with, taught and mentored many women law students, interns, fellows, and lawyers,
who now are partners in major firms around the country, judges on state and federal courts, law professors,
public officials, and public interest advocates. She has also actively worked to recruit highly qualified women
lawyers for positions in the federal government and has used her connections and advocacy skills to assure
greater diversity in high government ranks. This includes women general counsels in Cabinet agencies, other
high-level administrative positions, and judges—including as part of the NWLC team that helped secure the
confirmations of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
Indeed, NWLC under her direction has a long history of developing and mentoring women law students and
recent law graduates. It had a legal internship program before law schools had clinical programs, under which
law students spent a semester in Washington and received equivalent course credit at their law schools; it
helped found the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program, under which recent law graduates are
placed at NWLC and other public interest organizations or government agencies in Washington working on
women’s rights issues; and it both participates in other well-known fellowship programs and has its own
fellowship program to train recent law graduates on women’s legal issues. She also helped start and oversees
NWLC’s Leadership 35 Committee—a high-level advisory committee of talented women lawyers who are
emerging leaders in the private sector who both provide NWLC with advice and support on critical issues that
affect women and their families and network with each other and the staff and board of NWLC. They come from
law firms, general counsel offices in corporations and unions, and other organizations. In all these ways, her
st
5/20/2020 Biography · Nancy Duff Campbell · ABA Women Trailblazers Project
https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/nancy-duff-campbell/biography 3/3
efforts to advance women lawyers mirror her efforts in so many other ways, both personal and professional, to
advance all women in the profession.
Curriculum Vitae
Related Articles
Nancy Duff Campbell, A.B.A.: PREVIOUS MARGARET BRENT WOMEN LAW. ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENTS,
https://perma.cc/7PNH-H35N. See video of introduction and acceptance speech.
← Oral History Biography Photo Gallery →
Home · Browse Oral Histories · About · Contact Us
Stanford Home
Maps & Directions
Search Stanford
Emergency Info
Terms of Use
Privacy
Copyright
Trademark
Non-Discrimination
Accessibility
© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.