This award honors “exceptionally accomplished lawyers who have demonstrated professional excellence, integrity, leadership, commitment to the Hispanic community, and dedication to improving the legal profession,” the HNBA says in a release.

Gutierrez is an associate in Reed Smith’s Princeton, N.J., office and a member of its Financial Industry Group. Her practice focuses on litigation, representing financial institutions in individual and complex actions involving banking and consumer finance issues in state and federal courts. Gutierrez is currently on secondment at BNY Mellon, where she partners with compliance, risk and legal teams to ensure comprehensive support for regulatory reviews and examinations by regulatory agencies. She also helps monitor and analyze regulatory developments on artificial intelligence.

She has done exceptional work for the Hispanic legal community, including serving as HNBA’s director for continuing legal education programming, as a Latina commissioner, and as an HNBA deputy regional president for Region III. She also serves as trustee-at-large for the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey; and at Reed Smith, she is nationwide associate chair of the Hispanic/Latinx business inclusion group, UNIDOS.

Before coming to Reed Smith, Gutierrez clerked for Judge Bonnie J. Mizdol at the New Jersey Superior Court.

“Leidy has done an incredible job of successfully managing a business practice, while taking on various leadership roles within the HNBA and at Reed Smith as the UNIDOS associate chair,” says Princeton-based Reed Smith partner Julia A. López, who is also the nationwide partner chair of UNIDOS. The HNBA award will be conferred on March 25.