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; 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; the establishment of a uniform right to child support enforcement services for all custodial parents without regard to income, in Parents Without Partners v. Massinga; 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 expansion of 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, through congressional legislation and Department of Defense policies. 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, a Woman of Genius by Trinity College, and the 2010 Woman Lawyer of the Year 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 in 2010 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, and 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, 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, Low-Income Investment Fund Board of Directors, 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 Association.
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.