2019 Inductee
Witherspoon is a director and founder of the firm Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon and Galchus. She’s a prominent labor and employment attorney and the first woman to serve as president of the Arkansas Bar Association. Under her leadership, her firm has garnered work-life balance awards and achieved majority female ownership. She’s also supported and founded organizations that serve women.
Witherspoon graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1974 with her bachelor’s degree, and graduated with honors from the UALR School of Law in 1978. Her law practice in Arkansas has centered on representing private and public employers, and she’s regularly asked to conduct training for human resources professionals. She serves as the Arkansas delegate to the American Bar Association and is part of the prestigious Union Internationale des Advocats, which is an international society recognized before the United Nations. In 2013, she was appointed to the Commission on Uniform State Laws. She is a member of the American Bar Association and currently serves as chair of the Commission on Interest Lawyers’ Trust Accounts.
At CGWG, she’s been instrumental in furthering work-life balance practices and won acclaim locally and nationally from the American Psychological Association, the Society for Human Resources Management and the state of Arkansas. Her firm was honored in 2012, 2013 and 2014 with the When Work Works Award which recognizes companies that incorporate flexibility into workplace practices. The firm has been recognized for programs that foster employee well being and promote a family friendly workplace. Under her direction, CGWG became the only firm in the state, and possibly the region, with 50 percent ownership by female attorneys, a feat attributed to her devotion to mentoring, developing and promoting young female attorneys.
She provides legal services to low-income people through VOCALS — the Volunteer Organization Center for Arkansas Legal Services. She was an original founder of the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas and has served as past president. She is on the Little Rock Sister Cities Commission and the Board of Directors for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.