CARLISLE, Pa. — Penn State Dickinson Law’s Women’s Law Caucus presented 1978 alumna Barbara R. McLemore, vice president and general counsel for national and international engineering consulting firm Gannett Fleming Inc., with the 24th annual Hon. Sylvia H. Rambo Award during a ceremony Feb. 22 at Lewis Katz Hall in Carlisle. McLemore received the award in recognition of her exemplary contributions to the legal profession and to society as a whole.
“I’m honored and truly humbled to have been chosen for this award,” said McLemore. “It has been presented to so many who have blazed a trail for women in the legal profession: Judge Rambo, the Hon. Jane Alexander, Professor (Emerita) Christine Kellett and many more. It’s wonderful to see how far women have come.”
The Rambo Award was introduced in 1993 by the Women’s Law Caucus to honor its first recipient, Sylvia H. Rambo, a 1962 graduate of the Dickinson School of Law and the first woman to serve as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, where she continues to serve as a senior judge.
Each year, the Women's Law Caucus honors a female in the legal profession who has had a distinguished career and who, by example, has made the professional success of other women more likely. A list of past recipients is available online.
As chief legal officer, McLemore provides officers and management with legal advice on company policy and numerous issues. Her areas of expertise and specialty include engineering, architecture and construction law; alternate project deliver; government contracting; employee relations; commercial insurance; and risk management and contracts. She also serves as Gannett Fleming’s corporate conflict of interest officer, facility security officer and corporate ethics officer. In 1993, she became the second female stockholder of the company. She co-founded Connected Women at Gannett Fleming, an employee resource group for women.
McLemore currently serves on the Architects and Engineers Client Counsel Board for Lexington/AIG Insurance Company and is a Hearing Committee member of the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. She is a member of the Legal Counsel committees of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Consulting Engineers Council and the American Consulting Engineers Council Legal Counsel Forum. In addition to internal training programs, she has presented to the Construction Specification Institute, the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, the Federation of Corporate and Defense Counsel, Dickinson Law, Pennsylvania Bar Institute, and the New York City Practicing Law Institute. She has authored publications, served on the Professionalism Committee, and was treasurer of the Political Action Committee of the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
McLemore has been involved in various community and charitable activities, including hosting foreign exchange students through AFS and Rotary. She was appointed as a board member of the YWCA of Greater Harrisburg, vice chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, chairman of the Camp Hill Area Community Foundation, and Gannett Fleming executive for Executive Women’s International. She is a former chairperson of Suits to Careers/Dress for Success of South Central Pennsylvania, former president and current board member of the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Corporate Counsel Association, former member of the Foundation for Enhancing Communities Asset Development Committee, and was recognized as a “Woman of Influence” by the Harrisburg YWCA.
McLemore earned her juris doctor from the Dickinson School of Law and a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of science with honors from Virginia Tech.