The University of Pittsburgh Alumni Association (PAA) launched the 2024 Homecoming Week with its annual awards dinner honoring six graduates who exemplify what the University is all about—the relentless pursuit of change for good.
“The PAA is thrilled to celebrate these honorees—not just to show our gratitude to them for all they have done for Pitt and within the broader community—but also to hold them up to the rest of the Pitt community as examples of what we hope all of our alumni will strive to become, as well as examples of what a Pitt education enables,” said Nancy Merritt, vice chancellor for alumni relations.
Chief Justice Debra Todd (LAW ’82) was honored with the Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award for exceptional accomplishments in her profession, vocation, or community, which have had a profound and lasting impact.
Debra Todd started her march toward the highest position in the highest court in Pennsylvania as a precocious 12-year-old whose only exposure to the law at the time was a friendly lawyer neighbor and television character Perry Mason.
At that young age, Todd became a summer file clerk at the neighbor’s law firm in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. Even as a pre-teen, Todd had a talent for the field, and the neighbor encouraged her to pursue it as a career. From that point on, Todd never wavered, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1982.
After graduation, Todd worked in the legal office of U.S. Steel, the same company that employed her father, and many others from her small hometown, as a steel worker. She later moved to Cohen & Grigsby as their first female litigation partner, and, in 1993, opened her own law firm.
“Litigation is a rough and tumble job, and it can be especially tough for women,” Todd said. “I had been mistaken for the court reporter, someone's paralegal or secretary. My theory always was, go ahead, underestimate me, I'll prove you wrong.”
Todd soon set her sights on presiding over the controlled chaos of the courtroom. She was elected to the Pennsylvania Superior Court in 1999 and then to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2007. On October 1, 2022, she became the first female chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
Todd is known for her support of the state’s Veterans Treatment Courts and the Council on Elder Justice in the Courts, and for her insightful majority and dissenting opinions issued on landmark cases in the commonwealth, ranging from adoption rights to rules regarding the drawing of congressional districts.