The Section initiated the National Public Service Award in 1994 as part of its pro bono efforts. The National Public Service Award recognizes significant pro bono legal services that demonstrate a commitment to providing services to the poor in a business context, and recognizes the achievements resulting from the public service work for the clients and the client groups represented. Each year, the Section recognized the pro bono efforts of an individual business lawyer, as well as the collective efforts of a law firm or corporate law department. Award recipients have demonstrated dedication to the development or delivery of pro bono business legal services, contributed significant work toward developing innovative approaches to the delivery of pro bono business legal services, and/or provided sustained pro bono business legal counsel to nonprofit organizations or to microbusinesses in aid of community development.

• Heidi Y. Echols
  Heidi Y. Echols is a partner at McDermott Will & Emery. Echols has done extensive work for the DC Primary Care Association, a nonprofit health reform organization concerned about the increasingly poor health outcomes for the District of Columbia's most vulnerable residents as a result of a shortage of primary health care. In 2007, Echols began leading a multi-disciplinary, cross-office team in McDermott's representation of the DCPCA. Under Echols' leadership, the McDermott team has:
  
  
  • developed a patient consent model for the exchange of standardize health information consistent with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the laws and regulations in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia;
  • advised on and negotiated health information technology vendor agreements and subcontractor agreements;
  • drafted participation agreements for all of the health care stakeholders participating in the DC Regional Health Information Organization run by DCPCA (a RHIO is a health information organization that brings together health care stakeholders within a defined geographic area and governs health information exchange among them for the purpose of improving health and care in that community); and
  • counseled DCPCA and its partners on privacy and security policies and on HIPAA and state law requirements concerning the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI).
  
  
  
• Stroock & Stroock & Lavan
  The law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and its lawyers have been closely linked with pro bono services since the creation of Stroock's Public Service Project in 2001. The number of pro bono hours Stroock has provided since the inception of the Public Service Project has increased exponentially over time, reaching nearly 11,000 hours in 2008. Stroock dedicates most of its transactional pro bono hours to micro-entrepreneurs and community-based nonprofit organizations in the greater New York City area. The firm works closely with the City Bar Justice Center and the Legal Aid Society, as well as New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. It has also focused much of its transactional work on organizations that service the South Bronx and downtown Brooklyn. In addition, Stroock has moved from providing pro bono legal services on discrete matters to assuming the role of pro bono general counsel of several organizations, including the Fair Mortgage Collaborative (an organization established to develop a common national platform that allows lending organizations to make fair and safe mortgage loans to low-and moderate-income families) and the Global Workers Justice Alliance (an organization that advocates for migrant workers brought to America by companies looking for a supply of cheap labor).
  
  
  

• 2008 National Public Service Award Recipients
     Individual: Alison McKinnell King
     Firm: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
  
  
• 2007 National Public Service Award Recipients
     Individual: Conrad G. Bahlke
     Firm: Fredrikson & Byron, P.A.
  
  
• 2006 National Public Service Award Recipients
     Individual: David Punzak
     Firm: Skadden Arps
  
  
• 2005 National Public Service Award Recipients
     Individual: L. Joseph Genereux
     Firm: Cooley Godward, LLP
  
  
• 2004 National Public Service Award
• 2003 National Public Service Award
• 2002 National Public Service Award
• 2001 National Public Service Award
• 2000 National Public Service Award
• 1999 National Public Service Award
• 1998 National Public Service Award
• 1997 National Public Service Award
• 1996 National Public Service Award