Author E. Hughes Career Achievement Award

School of Law

Virginia C. Nelson ’79 (JD)

Law Offices of Virginia C. Nelson

Virginia C. Nelson has specialized in personal injury and medical malpractice matters for more than 30 years. She received her bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University in 1975 and her law degree from the University of San Diego’s School of Law, where she was a member of the San Diego Law Review and graduated cum laude in 1979.

Nelson is a member of the most prestigious trial attorney organizations in the country — including the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Board of Trial Advocates. Locally, she served as the youngest president of the San Diego County Bar Association in 1990, as president of the San Diego Inn of Court and the Enright American Inn of Court and as a member of the board of the San Diego County Bar Foundation, the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, the Volunteer Lawyers Program, the alumni board and the board of visitors for the USD School of Law, and the San Diego Law Library Board of Trustees. Nationally, she served as a member of the board of directors of the American Board of Trial Advocates and was vice chair of the Southern California Committee for the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Her dedication has earned Nelson numerous honors. She was a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the USD School of Law and received America’s Finest City Legal Professional of the Year in 1991. In 1997, she was presented with the Bernard E. Witkin Award for excellence in the teaching, enactment, adjudication and practice of law. In 1998, she received the Daniel T. Broderick, III Award for exemplifying the highest standards of civility, integrity and professionalism. Nelson has been recognized as one of the Best Lawyers in America for the last 18 years and the Los Angeles Daily Journal has repeatedly named her one of the Top 50 Women Litigators in California.

From 2007 to 2010, Nelson was chosen by her peers as one of the Top 10 Southern California Super Lawyers in San Diego. She also was selected by her Best Lawyer peers as San Diego’s Best Lawyers Personal Injury Litigator of the Year in 2010, earning the highest rating for ability, professionalism and integrity. That year, her law firm was named as one of the Best Lawyers Best Law Firms for Personal Injury and Medical Negligence by U.S. News & World Report.

Nelson, her husband, Mark Andrews, and son Nick Andrews, reside in Coronado, Calif.