Colleen T. Davies-Ronan J.D. ’83 has received the Alumni Special Achievement Award from Santa Clara School of Law, which recognizes outstanding achievements of law school alumni who have distinguished themselves in their profession, community, and in service to humanity. Davies-Ronan is senior counsel at Reed Smith and a member of the firm’s life sciences health industry group. During her 35-year career, she has been a partner at both Reed Smith and the firm with which it merged—Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May. For ten years, she served on Reed Smith’s senior management team as global chair of the litigation department and head of legal personnel. During this time, the firm underwent rapid global expansion across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, growing to 1,600 lawyers in 23 offices around the world. She has focused her litigation practice on complex product liability and commercial defense, and her experience includes national counsel roles and the management of enterprise risk for pharmaceutical, medical device, and consumer product manufacturers. She has been recognized by Chambers USA for both product liability defense and life sciences; named by the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Daily Journal as among the Top Women Litigators; and featured as one of California’s top women rainmakers by California Law Business. She is a member of Santa Clara Law’s Advisory Board and serves as chair of its Executive Committee. A UC Davis undergraduate alumni who majored in English language and literature, she is married to Joe Ronan, formerly general counsel and senior vice president of government affairs at Calpine, and they are the proud parents of Katie (a Boston College graduate) and Patrick (a junior at Columbia University).