Toni Wolfman

Toni Wolfman is a retired lawyer whose activities in recent years have centered on improving corporate governance, advancing women to leadership positions in the business world, and preparing young women of promise for personal and professional success.

From 1977 through 2004, Toni practiced law with Foley Hoag LLP as a partner in its litigation department focusing on the resolution of complex commercial disputes. For many years she led the firm’s award winning pro bono program. As a board member of the Women’s Bar Association, Toni helped initiate the Supreme Judicial Court’s Gender Bias Study Committee and then helped to author its report. She also served on the SJC’s Committee on Professional Responsibility for Clerks of Court, the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics and the original Access to Justice Committee. While in practice, Toni was a director of Cambridge & Somerville Legal Services, Greater Boston Legal Services, the National Consumer Law Center and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. She chaired the Boston Bar Association’s Delivery of Legal Services Committee, was a Trustee of the Boston Bar Foundation, and chaired its Grants Committee.

After retiring from Foley Hoag, Toni was Executive Advisor to Bentley University’s Center for Women and Business where she served as a resource to faculty, students and alumnae on issues affecting women in business and the professions and a link between the university and business leaders. Most recently, Toni was Senior Philanthropic Advisor at Smith College and held a wide range of volunteer leadership positions for Smith. Among her volunteer positions for Smith was service as a Trustee.

As an advocate for improved corporate governance and the advancement of women in the business world, Toni has held leadership positions in The Boston Club, ION, Women Corporate Directors–Boston and The Thirty Percent Coalition. Toni has been a co-author of The Boston Club’s annual census of women directors and executive officers of the 100 largest public companies in Massachusetts since its inception in 2003, and is a director emeritus of the Center for Women & Enterprise.

Toni received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Smith College, an M.A. from Columbia University, and a J.D., cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif. Toni has been recognized for her contributions to the legal profession and to the advancement of women by the BBA, the WBA, GBLS, The Boston Club and the Boston Business Journal.

For her Access to Justice Fellowship project, Toni will work with Greater Boston Legal Services to improve and expand its pro bono collaboration with law firms and corporate legal departments. The goal of this project is the institutionalization of a system that will optimize the ways in which the private bar provides a range of legal services to GBLS clients while also assisting in the professional development of the lawyers who participate. The overall mission of GBLS is to provide free legal assistance to as many low-income families as possible to help them secure some of the most basic necessities of life.