Susan Butler Plum

Susan Butler Plum is the founding director of the Skadden Foundation, which awards two-year grants to 28 public interest attorneys per year. The foundation was established in April 1988 and has made grants to 820 attorneys who provide civil legal services to the poor.

Prior to joining Skadden, Ms. Butler Plum was the director of the Botwinick-Wolfensohn Foundation and program director of the Booth Ferris Foundation. She also was the associate director for the Environmental Defense Fund. She is a graduate of the University of Miami.

Among her board affiliations are trusteeships of the Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation, where she is president, and of the Community Opportunity Fund. She is also a board member of Deaf Legal Advocacy Worldwide, which was founded by a former Skadden Fellow. Ms. Butler Plum is also a board member of Justice Labs, a Hong Kong-based public interest legal organization, and of Partners for Justice.

She also is a member of:

• the Foundation Board of Stella and Charles Guttman Community College of CUNY;

• the International Advisory Council of the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative;

• the Harvard Law School Venture Fund Advisory Group; and

• the New York Weill Cornell Council.

In 2008, she received the annual North Star Award, Honoring New Yorkers Committed to Social Justice.

In 2013, she received a special Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Law Journal shared with the Skadden Fellowship Foundation.

In 2015, Ms. Butler Plum was selected as one of 50 Inspiring Change Makers worldwide by the Harvard Law and International Development Society and the Harvard Women’s Law Association.

In 2017, Ms. Butler Plum was honored by the Center for Popular Democracy.