Hon. Karen S. Crawford ’80 Receives the 2024 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Ninth Circuit

SAN DIEGO (July 25, 2024) -- California Western School of Law (CWSL) is proud to announce that Hon. Karen S. Crawford ’80 has received the prestigious 2024 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Ninth Circuit. Since 2012, Karen has been a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California, and she became the court’s presiding magistrate judge in April. 

From the American Inns of Court: 

Members of the Louis M. Welsh and Hon. J. Clifford Wallace American Inns of Court nominated Crawford because of her long commitment to the Inns of Court movement. “Judge Crawford’s devotion to the American Inns of Court has been unparalleled in our legal community,” writes William M. Low, president of the Welsh Inn of Court and a partner at Higgs Fletcher & Mack LLP in San Diego. “When asked why she has remained so active over four decades, she responds that she always learns something at every meeting and wants others to gain from the experience as well.”

Crawford is the current president of the Wallace Inn and served as president of the Welsh Inn from 2012 to 2017. She helped found and served as president of what is now known as the Hay-Sell Pittsburgh American Inn of Court in Pittsburgh and helped found three additional Inns in Western Pennsylvania. At the national level, Crawford served as trustee and board secretary of the American Inns of Court Foundation from 1995 to 2000. In 1998, she received the American Inns of Court’s A. Sherman Christensen Award in recognition of her inspiring leadership and efforts to improve the nation’s legal system.

As a magistrate judge, Crawford handles both civil and criminal cases. She also participates in the Alternatives to Prison Solutions diversion program, which allows certain defendants to engage in a year of intensive court supervision as they define and work toward achieving their goals, and upon successful completion “graduate” without criminal records. From 2005 to 2012, Crawford served as chair of litigation at Duane Morris LLP. In 2001, she opened the first west coast office of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC and served as managing partner. Earlier she worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California and for the U.S. Department of Justice. She was also national counsel for an international latex glove company.