Evanko selected to receive 2019 Edwin F. Jaeckle Award

Ann E. Evanko.

Published November 16, 2018 This content is archived.

Ann E. Evanko, president and managing member of Hurwitz & Fine, P.C. will receive the 2019 Edwin F. Jaeckle Award, the highest honor the University at Buffalo School of Law and the UB Law Alumni Association can bestow.

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The Jaeckle Award is given annually to a person who exemplifies the highest ideals of the School of Law and the Law Alumni Association and has made significant contributions to the school and the legal profession.

Evanko, a member of the law school’s Class of 1979, will be honored at the annual presentation of the Jaeckle Award and Alumni Luncheon at 12 noon on Friday, February 1, 2019. For the first time in many years, the award will be conferred in Buffalo rather than in New York City, at the Buffalo Club located at 388 Delaware Ave.

The first female attorney hired by Hurwitz & Fine, P.C. in 1979, Evanko has led the Buffalo-based law firm, with offices in Albany, Toronto, Palm Beach, Long Island and Lake Placid, as president since 2008.  She focuses her practice on employment law, business and commercial litigation.  She is also a highly regarded mediator in both the boardroom and the courtroom, particularly for complex business, commercial and employment disputes.

Identified by Buffalo’s Business First as one of the most powerful and influential people in Western New York, Evanko has also been named to both the “Power 250” list which recognizes the men and women who “wield the most clout in the region,” as well as the “Power 100 Women” list which showcases the region’s most  influential and powerful women. In 2016, Business First honored Evanko with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Women of Influence for her contributions to the community, to the women focused charitable organizations she champions, and to her firm.  She was previously recognized with the inaugural Business First “Women Who Mean Business” Award.

Evanko is a founder and past president of the Western New York Chapter of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, and served as a member of the board of directors, vice president, treasurer, and chair of the finance committee for the New York State Women’s Bar Association. She is the immediate past chair of the board of directors for the WNY Women’s Foundation where she continues to serve on its board of directors as well as the governance and finance committees. She is a member of the board of directors of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and was the 2008 recipient of the Athena Award.

Prior to law school, Evanko earned her master’s degree in history from the University at Buffalo in 1973.  She has maintained close ties with the law school throughout her legal career, co-chairing the School of Law’s Annual Fund in 2013, and serving on the Dean’s Advisory Council since 2014. She is the 2015 recipient of the Law Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award for Community Service, and is an active leader and promoter of the law school’s mentor program.

The Jaeckle Award is named for Edwin F. Jaeckle ’15, a founding partner of the former Buffalo law firm Jaeckle, Fleischmann & Mugel, and a major benefactor of the school.  Evanko joins several other esteemed members of the legal community who have previously received the Jaeckle Award, including Hon. Charles S. Desmond, Hon. Matthew J. Jasen, Manly Fleischmann, Jacob D. Hyman, Hon. M. Dolores Denman, William R. Greiner, Hon. Eugene F. Pigott, Jr., Terrence M. Connors and Hon. Barbara Howe, among others.