Workers' Compensation Section Chair Francis "Bud" Drapeau presented Diane D. Duhamel with the 2019 Pomeranz-O'Brien Award.
Diane D. Duhamel received the Pomeranz-O’Brien Award from the Connecticut Bar Association’s (CBA) Workers’ Compensation Section for her contribution and exemplary service to the workers’ compensation system and community. Attorney Duhamel was presented with the award at the 2019 Connecticut Legal Conference during the section’s seminar, “Current Issues in the Workers’ Compensation System.”
“Diane brought the Workers’ Compensation Section from a 'good-old-boys' network to an active, thriving, and energetic section that was, and still is, a model for the CBA. She brought diversity and inclusion to the section; she demanded a lot of those who she worked with, but demanded and delivered even more of herself, all for the benefit and betterment of the section and all of its members,” expressed Attorney Mark D. Leighton, who nominated Attorney Duhamel for the award.
Attorney Duhamel is a chair of the Examining Committee for Workers' Compensation Certification in the State of Connecticut, chair of the CBA Workers’ Compensation Certification Examining Committee, and a past chair of the CBA Workers' Compensation Section Executive Committee, of which she is a frequent lecturer and moderator for the section. Additionally, Attorney Duhamel was a member of the editorial board for the CBA's Compensation Quarterly (1996-2000). She is currently employed by McGann Bartlett & Brown LLC in East Harford, a firm that primarily represents employers throughout Connecticut in defending work related injuries.
The Pomeranz-O’Brien Award is presented to a practitioner who has, over the course of a career, exhibited excellence in the practice of workers’ compensation law, and/or made outstanding and extraordinary contributions to the practice. It is named for Edward Pomeranz, an early pioneer in the practice of workers’ compensation law and a founder of Pomeranz Drayton & Stabnick, and Ed O’Brien, Sr., an accomplished practitioner who also served the state as workers’ compensation commissioner. Past recipients of this award include William C. Brown, Angelo Paul Sevarino, James L. Pomeranz, Robert F. Carter, Donald C. Cousins, and Douglas L. Drayton.
The Workers’ Compensation Section aims to organize the members of the CBA who are workers’ compensation practitioners and to educate all members of the bar from all sides at all levels of expertise as to workers’ compensation law. Furthermore, the section attempts to provide services to organizations other than the CBA when those organizations are involved in the Connecticut Workers’ Compensation system. The section consists of members who represent injured workers, employers and insurers as well as the State of Connecticut and the Second Injury Fund.