George B. Davis Award For Service to the University
An engaged alumna and esteemed attorney, Annette Garner Butler's distinguished career includes service as an Equal Opportunity Specialist for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare’s Office of Civil Rights; eight years as an associate attorney with the prestigious law firm Guren, Merritt, Sogg and Cohen; 24 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the United States Attorney’s Office; a hearing officer with the Cuyahoga County Board of Revision; and Judge on the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. Since 2014, she has been the Assistant Director of Law for the City of Cleveland.
Ms. Butler has generously shared her time and energy with CSU for some 30 years. She was a member of the University’s Board of Trustees from 1982-1989, including two terms each as vice chair and treasurer, followed by 23 years as a member of the Cleveland State University Foundation Board of Directors. She remains active with the Foundation as an Emeritus Director since 2012.
She is a life member of the Cleveland-Marshall Law Alumni Association, and a former member of the Law Dean’s Roundtable and the Fenn Academy Oversight Board in the Washkewicz College of Engineering. Most recently, she was a member of CSU’s 50th anniversary planning committee.
She also has served her community with pride as president of the Federal Bar Association, first elected president and first woman board chair of the City Club of Cleveland, president of both the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library and the Shaker Heights Library, founder and past president of the Black Women Lawyers Association, and more.
Her many awards include the Urban League of Cleveland’s Woman of the Year.
Ms. Butler earned her undergraduate degree in sociology from Case Western Reserve University and her JD from CSU’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1970. She lives in Cleveland.