Overview
BFKN is pleased to announce that Financial Institutions Group Senior Counsel Karol K. Sparks was selected as the winner of the 2024 Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award at the American Bar Association Business Law Section Spring Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Karol has been instrumental in shaping the landscape of business law through her unparalleled expertise, commitment, and advocacy. Her remarkable achievements have not only garnered recognition within the legal community but have also significantly impacted the lives of her clients and colleagues.
"We are extremely happy to learn of Karol’s selection for the 2024 Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award. Our attorneys have been fortunate to work directly with Karol for over 20 years. Her unbelievable depth of experience and knowledge in the banking industry has been a true asset not only to our clients, but to the attorneys with whom she has been able to teach and mentor. Over the years she has been a terrific example to our young attorneys on how to act professionally, with integrity and personality. She is a true force and her leadership and respect within the industry is well earned." — Robert M. Fleetwood, Co-Chair, Financial Institutions Group
Karol concentrates her practice on corporate activities and regulatory issues of financial institutions, about which she has counseled banks for over 40 years. Her special emphasis is on the distribution of nontraditional bank products, including annuities, insurance, mutual funds, and treasury management and related commercial deposit account services, and the myriad of federal and state laws and regulations that apply to those activities. Karol’s national practice was anchored during her four-year term as Chair of the American Bar Association’s 2,000-member Banking Law Committee. She is one of the founders, and served on the faculty, of Banking Law Basics, a three-day primer on banking law, sponsored by ABA-CLE, and presented twice annually in San Francisco and Boston from 1998 through 2010 and is one of the faculty of the successor program Banking Law Fundamentals offered twice annually from 2011 to the present. It is currently sponsored by Boston University School of Law in June and Chicago-Kent Law School in November. Over 1,600 lawyers from across the U.S. and abroad have attended these courses.
About the Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award
Named after the first woman to chair the ABA Business Law Section, the Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award is presented annually to an exceptional woman business lawyer who has made significant contributions to the profession and the Business Law Section. Click here to learn more about the Jean Allard Glass Cutter Award.