Craig Cannon

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Craig D. Cannon has been actively involved in pro bono efforts throughout his career. Cannon's nomination was submitted and supported by representatives of Legal Services Corporation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services and Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC.

Since 2006, Cannon has served as the National Coordinator of the American Bar Association’s Disaster Legal Services Program, a program managed pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding between the American Bar Association and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Disaster Legal Services Program provides pro bono legal assistance to disaster victims across the country. In the fall of 2007, Cannon served as the lead drafter of a new Memorandum of Understanding between the American Bar Association and the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has resulted in a new partnership between the American Bar Association and Legal Services Corporation and the improved delivery of legal assistance to disaster victims. During his tenure as National Coordinator, more than 75,000 disaster victims have received assistance through the Disaster Legal Services Program.

Since 2005, Cannon has helped to plan and implement a series of pro bono clinics for military veterans. These clinics, titled "When Duty Calls" clinics, are designed to assist military veterans in obtaining service related disability benefits from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. During the past two years, "When Duty Calls" clinics have provided pro bono assistance to more than one thousand military veterans. During the same timeframe, hundreds of attorneys have received instruction on how to effectively assist military veterans in filing disability claims with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

Cannon has also personally provided pro bono legal assistance to numerous charitable institutions and spent four weeks in New Orleans during the summer of 2006 providing pro bono assistance to Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims.

Personal Statement

Fordham University School of Law (Public Interest Resource Center)

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Founded at Fordham University School of Law in 1992, the Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC), guided by the remarkable leadership of Tom Schoenherr (currently the Assistant Dean for Public Interest and Director of PIRC) and John Ferrick (currently the Norris Chair of Law to Public Service), among others, and driven by succeeding classes of highly motivated public interest law students, has established itself as a nationally heralded and emulated law school pro bono program and public interest center that is a model for law schools, not only throughout greater New York, but throughout the country.

Nearly 500 Fordham Law students each year participate in some form of pro bono or public service through PIRC, which is staffed by four full-time professionals and administers eighteen separate student-run volunteer programs. Last year, the class of 2007 contributed over 100,000 hours of pro bono or public services through PIRC organizations, internships, externships, clinics and independent projects.

1. the Domestic Violence Awareness Center, through which students accompany domestic violence victims to court and participate in the Uncontested Divorce Project;
2. the Death Penalty Defense Project, including pro bono legal assistance to death row inmates and public comment on capital crimes rule-making;
3. the Housing Advocacy Project, through which students defend clients at administrative hearings and provide support to a local affordable housing legal services program fighting against evictions in housing court; and
4. the Immigration Advocacy Project, enabling students to work with legal services providers to assist immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence to apply for green cards under the Violence Against Women Act

Other programs address such issues as prisoner rights, the environment, hurricane assistance, unemployment, human trafficking, homelessness and youth at risk. In addition, PIRC sponsors student internships with non-profit organizations and government agencies throughout the country and awards Stein Scholarships to twenty students in each class year to develop public interest careers.

Fordham University School of Law and its remarkable Public Interest Resource Center supports, trains and educates law students to become lawyers dedicated to the public good. In doing so, they are not only models for other law schools, they are models for us all.

Personal Statement

Sarah Michael Singleton

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Sarah Michael Singleton’s nomination was submitted by the President of the State Bar of New Mexico, with the support of the Board of Bar Commissioners, and the endorsement of no fewer than sixteen of the past Presidents of the New Mexico Bar. She also received letters of support from six separate legal services providers who spoke of the unique role Singleton has played in leading the movement to provide Access to Justice and legal services to New Mexico’s poor.

As President of the New Mexico State Bar in 1995-1996, Singleton convened the state’s symposium on strategies for expanding Access to Justice. She served on the Board of Bar Commissioners from 1989-1997, and throughout that time her primary mission was to educate, motivate and initiate greater understanding of the need for legal services for the poor. She created the Lawyers Care Program, a program of the New Mexico State Bar developed for the purpose of referring cases to the private bar in the face of federal spending cuts to New Mexico’s legal aid programs.

Following her term as State Bar President, Singleton served as co-chair of the State Bar’s Legal Services and Programs Committee, responsible for addressing access to justice issues. She fought for and helped persuade the State Legislature to provide funding for legal services, resulting in $2.5 million in annual funding. She served as the State Bar’s appointee to the Civil Legal Services Commission, responsible for distributing those state funds to organizations serving the legal needs of the poor. Singleton has been the Co-Chair of New Mexico’s Commission on Access to Justice since its inception in 2004.

Singleton has been active in the cause of Access to Justice and provision of legal services to the poor beyond the borders of New Mexico. She served two three year terms as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense (1996-1999, 2001-2004), and four years as a member of the ABA Committee on State Justice Initiatives. Finally, in 2006, Singleton was appointed by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as a member of the Board of Legal Services Corporation.

Personal Statement

David A. Kutik

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David A. Kutik of Jones Day in Cleveland, Ohio has been actively involved in pro bono efforts throughout his 28 year legal career. As a bar leader, a leader in his law firm and an active practitioner, David has advanced the cause of providing legal services to those most in need but least able to afford them.

Kutik served as President of the Cleveland Bar Association in 2004-2005, and one his primary objectives was to encourage and foster the growth of pro bono commitment from the law firms and law departments throughout the greater Cleveland area. His initiative, entitled, Our Commitment to Our Community, resulted in pledges of more than 60,000 hours of pro bono service in its first year in existence. In that year alone, 2,000 lawyers from 28 law firms and three law departments actually delivered over 70,000 hours of pro bono service. Kutik continues to be very active in fostering pro bono commitment and creating opportunities for lawyers to participate. In his role as Vice President of the Legal Aid Society in Cleveland, he chairs its Pro Bono Committee. Working with the Legal Aid Society, he established a Volunteer Lawyers Program, which has in turn established a number of clinics providing free legal assistance to those in need. In addition, he currently chairs the Ohio State Bar Association Pro Bono Task Force. In that position, he has helped involve the judiciary in Pro Bono programs as well.

Finally, Kutik practices what he preaches. He actively participates in the Legal Aid Society’s Brief Advice and Referral Clinics, taking on family law matters at these Saturday morning clinics in neighborhoods throughout Legal Aid’s service area.

Personal Statement

DLA Piper

DLA Piper’s pro bono program is widely considered one of the most robust and innovative models among large law firms today. According to The American Lawyer’s pro bono survey last year, more than 95% of DLA Piper lawyers in the US worked 20 hours or more on pro bono projects, making the firm #1 for pro bono participation in the AmLaw 200. Lawyers at the firm worked an average of 89 hours of pro bono in 2006. DLA Piper has developed innovative strategic projects in partnership with nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, foundations, and corporate clients. These projects aim to aggregate and focus legal expertise to develop creative solutions to challenging social problems and provide world class legal services to the most vulnerable and underserved members of the global community. Some of DLA Piper’s signature projects include: Access to Education, The Fight Against Hunger, and Serving Those Who Serve Our Country.

One project that deserves special recognition is Chicago’s Signature Project in Juvenile Justice - the largest pro bono project undertaken by DLA Piper to date. This project grew out of the firm’s desire to enhance the impact of its pro bono work by concentrating significant resources in a particular area of law. In all, the firm donated over 23,000 lawyer hours, worth nearly $6.5 million, to representing young people in conflict with the law and to examining particular laws and public policies that impede these young people’s abilities to turn their lives around.

Over the past three years, DLA Piper lawyers have zealously represented scores of children I legal proceedings; undertaken a major policy initiative aimed at helping court-involved children return to school; and drafted and introduced legislation in the Illinois legislature that will positively affect thousands of young people’s lives.

Personal Statement

Robert Borton has been a leader in the development of pro bono services to the poor for the past three decades, both through his management of his firm's pro bono practice and his individual representation of low income clients. Working with a number of legal services organizations, Mr. Borton has paired many teams of pro bono attorneys from his firm with public interest attorneys bringing civil rights cases and class actions on behalf of immigrants, children and families, women prisoners, and other groups. He has assisted in setting up pro bono legal clinics and has himself contributed hundreds of hours of his own time to representing indigent people in class action lawsuits and individual cases.

Mr. Borton has also been extremely generous with his firm's resources. He has invited young attorneys from legal services agencies to attend his firm's in-house litigation training program, providing them with comprehensive training free of charge. He has also marshaled attorney involvement in activities ranging from research support for policy impact cases to organizing of a team of 13 attorneys in his firm to teach 120 Oakland high school students about civil rights.

Derfner, Altman & Wilborn is a small firm with a big heart. This Charleston, SC firm is exemplary in its dedication to pro bono, especially in the area of civil rights. This year, two of the individual attorneys in the firm, Peter Wilborn and Jonathan Altman, won South Carolina Bar Association pro bono awards.

The firm's lawyers annually spend more than a quarter of their time on pro bono cases. They specialize in representing community groups in controversies that often end in litigation. Some of their recent projects have involved a successful suit to redraw County Council election districts to end discrimination, a successful suit saving a historic African-American cemetery, and a series of suits that have saved the land and homes of a group of African-Americans who were the targets - and almost the victims - of highly sophisticated real estate scams.

Armand Derfner, the founding member of the firm, has always had a passion for defending the underdog. He has particularly focused his efforts on civil rights matters. Mr. Derfner has won numerous cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has worked on the Voting Rights Act - litigation and working on legislation - throughout its history from passage in 1965 through the most recent re-authorization by Congress in 2006. In Charleston, he challenged the County Council's at large system of elections, arguing that the system discriminates against black voters. Among other recognition, Mr. Derfner has received the Trial Lawyer of the Year award by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice for his work in the desegregation of Mississippi's university system.

Jonathan Altman focuses on consumer law and personal injury. He leads the firm's efforts representing the victims -- primarily African American -- of real estate scams. He worked locally in a case involving the Remley's Point community, an African-American community in Charleston County, against the sale and development of the community's historic cemetery. After five years of litigation, the case resulted in a verdict permanently protecting the cemetery and dedicating it to the public. He is also involved with housing issues, serving as chairman of a commission that promotes home ownership and works to develop policies to achieve more affordable housing in the Charleston area.

D. Peters Wilborn, Jr. successfully addresses legal need in both the microcosm of local issues and the macrocosm of global human rights. In his practice, he focuses on representation of community groups, labor law and election law. He gives generously of his time to local legal aid groups, informing low income consumers of their rights and training other lawyers to be consumer advocates. Two of his cases that received local and national coverage include his representation of a rural African-American community known as Red Top in its fight against suburban sprawl and his assistance to eliminate blatant racial discrimination by a city and some of its businesses towards African American riders during "Black Biker Week". Mr. Wilborn is also a dedicated cycling and pedestrian advocate, serving on the board of the East Coast Greenway Alliance.

The collective talents and dedication of this small firm are exemplary.

Stephen H. Oleskey is a partner in the Boston, Massachusetts office of WilmerHale. He has been an integral part of the firm's Pro Bono and Community Service Committee since 1969. Mr. Oleskey is deeply concerned with the efficacy of the delivery system of legal services to the poor and committed to fostering the spirit of pro bono in future generations of attorneys.

Mr. Oleskey's pro bono clients and their needs vary widely and illustrate the breadth of his skill. For example, he has been involved in a range of cases such as a three-year on-going New York child custody dispute to acting as lead counsel in the firm's largest and most significant pro bono matter, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, representing six detainees at the United States Naval Base Guantanamo Bay.

Steve's decades of service include significant leadership in various local, national and international legal and social organizations. Whether holding a director or chair position at Boston's most prominent legal service centers or serving as director of Food Corp International, a program that provides research, training and low-cost technology to low income international rural communities, Mr. Oleskey is deeply involved in ensuring access to justice for all.

Mr. Oleskey's dedication to access to justice has been recognized on many occasions. He has been honored with the 1992 Thurgood Marshall Award from the Boston Bar Association, recognized by the International Senior Lawyers Project for his outstanding pro bono services to the Socio-Legal Information Centre in New Delhi, India, received the Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services "Distinguished Service Award" in 2005, and was presented with WilmerHale's own John H. Pickering Award for Pro Bono Activities in 2005.

For four decades, Mr. Oleskey has not only made pro bono representation a priority in his own career, but has also been an inspirational leader. He strives to make a lasting impact on the delivery and quality of services available to indigent clients, undertake high-impact, precedent-setting matters and give a voice to the least powerful in our society.

An international firm, Sidley Austin LLP has had a long tradition of pro bono service. The firm's pro bono policy strongly encourages all attorneys to devote time to pro bono legal matters. Sidley places no limit on the number of pro bono hours an attorney can work and strives to ensure that the number of hours of pro bono service equals 3% of the firm's total billable hours.

Over the past decade, Sidley attorneys have provided over 300,000 hours of pro bono legal service and in 2006 alone, provided 75,000 hours on pro bono matters - an increase of almost 50% from 2005. The pro bono legal matters that Sidley has undertaken have varied in scope-from individual cases in areas of child custody and landlord/tenant to U.S. Supreme Court cases potentially affecting millions of people.

In 2005 Sidley initiated a firm-wide death penalty litigation project. In response to the overwhelming need for legal assistance for poor prisoners on death row in Alabama, Sidley attorneys have stepped in to represent an unprecedented 18 death row inmates. Over 112 Sidley attorneys from around the country are participating in this effort and donated more than 18,000 hours of their time in 2006. In recognition of this tremendous contribution, the ABA presented Sidley with its first ever Death Penalty Representation Volunteer Award in 2006.

Furthermore, in 2006, Sidley launched a firm-wide Political Asylum Project to centralize and coordinate the firm's management of asylum cases. Sidley now has a centralized database of materials and attorneys interested in providing representation and provides training and mentoring to its attorneys in this area.

Patricia Yoedicke is this year's Ann Liechty Child Custody and Adoption Pro Bono Project Award recipient. Ms. Yoedicke is an attorney with Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since 2000, Ms. Yoedicke has provided close to 800 pro bono hours representing children through the Children's Law Center of Minnesota. These children are state wards whose parents' rights have been terminated. Under Minnesota law, these children are not entitled to representation after the point at which their parents' rights are terminated. Ms. Yoedicke's volunteer representation fills the void for the children she represents. She has often been the most consistent person in these children's lives, and she treats them with respect and professionalism equal to her adult clients.

For each of her child clients, Ms. Yoedicke spends time ascertaining their wishes, explaining available options, consulting with social service providers, and making sure their voices are heard in court. For example, she worked diligently to keep three siblings together in a permanent placement after the proposed adoptive parent decided she only wanted to adopt one of the children. She also represented a child who had contacted the Children's Law Center requesting an attorney to help him get adopted. Ms. Yoedicke was able to successfully assist this child with an adoption placement, helped negotiate a visitation agreement with the child's biological brother, and worked diligently to maintain this placement for the child after the county refused to allow the child to remain in the home. As Ms. Yoedicke says about her pro bono work with children, "The most important message I hope to convey to my clients is that their hopes and dreams can make a difference."

Debra Brown Steinberg has led the Cadwalader firm's 9/11 pro bono efforts, providing representation to families of World Trade Center victims. In addition to personally representing several families of 9/11 victims herself, she played a leading role in the creation and development of the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest 9/11 Project in early October 2001.

Ms. Steinberg has also had a role in the drafting and passage of legislation on behalf of victims' families. Specifically, she drafted the Association of the Bar of the City of New York's comments on the interim and final regulations for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and a substantial portion of the 9/11 Victims and Families Relief Act in NY. Furthermore, she drafted substantial portions of legislation to provide legal recognition and protection to family members of non-citizen victims of the attacks - known as the September 11 Family Humanitarian Relief and Patriotism Act - which is currently pending in both the House and Senate.

Ms. Steinberg has received many honors and recognition for her pro bono service including praise by the United States House of Representatives (May 18, 2004) and acknowledgement in a New York State Senate Legislative Resolution (April 29, 2003). Ms. Steinberg also received the New York State Bar Association's 2003 Pro Bono Service Award.

Ward Coe is a partner and head of the litigation department at Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, LLP and has spent well over 1,300 hours working for systemic changes in the delivery of pro bono legal services in Maryland.

Mr. Coe exercised tremendous leadership in encouraging his firm to adopt a pro bono policy and, some years later, to lead his firm's efforts to become the first in Baltimore to dedicate a partner to pro bono service. As a result of Mr. Coe's leadership, the amount of the firm's pro bono legal service has doubled.

In addition to firm leadership, Mr. Coe has provided direct pro bono representation, such as administering trusts for plaintiffs from a 1986 law suit against the state challenging the foster care system. He has also served as a member of the Maryland Judicial Commission on Pro Bono which recommended new state pro bono rules and has chaired the Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Pro Bono Service which is charged with implementing the new rules. He has traveled the state and provided countless hours of pro bono fulfilling the obligations of these roles.

In 2002, Mr. Coe received a Maryland Pro Bono Service Award from the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland for his successful multi-year representation of an impoverished mental health patient who had been denied benefits by his disability insurer. In September, 2005, Mr. Coe received The Maryland Bar Foundation's Professional Legal Excellence Award for the Advancement of the Rights of the Disadvantaged, and in October, 2005, he was selected by a past Maryland State Bar Association President to receive The Pro Bono Resource Center's Pro Bono Legal Service Award.

Richard Zitrin has been a dedicated pro bono attorney providing direct legal services to clients of the Homeless Advocacy Project (HAP) of the Bar Association of San Francisco's (BASF) Volunteer Legal Services Program for over four years. He also created the twice-monthly drop in legal clinic at San Francisco's Glide Memorial Church and single-handedly staffs the clinic on a regular basis. In addition to his direct client work, Mr. Zitrin conducts pro bono work on a systemic level - drafting rules, codes and legislation in partnership with bar associations and state governments.

Mr. Zitrin's pro bono commitment has been evident since his graduation from law school. After graduation, he and a group of new attorneys and law students founded the Criminal Legal Aid Collective (CLAC), a nonprofit organization in San Francisco that provided pro bono legal defense services to indigent clients in criminal cases. In total, he worked on thirty CLAC pro bono cases between 1976 and 1981.

Mr. Zitrin is also extremely active in the community and with local, state and national bar associations. He is also the recipient of several awards, including being honored by the Bar Association of the San Francisco's Foundation for volunteer work in 2004, and a Certificate of Merit from BASF for promoting "equality and justice for all" in 2002.

Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP is an international firm that has set the standard for pro bono. The firm's commitment to pro bono legal service is demonstrated by its consistent ranking among the nation's top law firms for pro bono work. In 2005, Debevoise was ranked number one on the American Lawyer's A List.

Debevoise & Plimpton gets lawyers involved right away upon joining the firm and have taken several different approaches to introduce new lawyers to pro bono. The firm has done extensive transactional pro bono work with numerous non-profit and community-based organizations serving low-income communities.

Debevoise has always taken on important and complex pro bono litigation. Traditionally, the firm has applied its most significant resources in this arena. In recent pro bono cases, Debevoise lawyers have advocated on behalf of clients seeking to assert and defend international human rights, prisoners' rights, voters' rights, labor and employment rights, First Amendment rights and other constitutional civil rights, as well as the rights of individuals with mental illness.

In recent years, Debevoise has been recognized for its outstanding pro bono work by a variety of public interest organizations. In 2005, Debevoise was honored by The Legal Aid Society for its work on prisoners' rights. In 2004, Debevoise was honored with the first Marvin E. Frankel Pro Bono Award by Human Rights First, in recognition of the firm's longstanding commitment to pro bono activities in the field of human rights and, in particular, the firm's work in assisting refugees in seeking political asylum. In 2003, Debevoise was the recipient of The Legal Aid Society's 2003 Pro Bono Publico and Public Service Law Firm Award and was recognized for its pro bono efforts by the Urban Justice Center.

In the late 1990's, staff from the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation (CVLS) were appointed as guardian ad litems in a handful of problematic guardianship cases in Cook County. However, by the early 2002, the appointments grew more than the CLVS staff could handle. As a direct result of this development, in late 2002 Winston & Strawn and CVLS formed a partnership that continues to this day. This partnership has benefited both parties, as it allows Winston to have a continuing pro bono opportunity for its lawyers and CVLS a larger staff base to handle the growing number of appointments assigned to them from the minor guardianship courtroom. The significance of Winston's work is twofold: it is being done by partners, and attorneys from practice areas other than litigation are providing representation. Between February 28, 2003 and January 16, 2006, more than 40 Winston attorneys have donated 2,300+ hours as Guardian Ad Litem in 74 cases. Winston is the first law firm to be honored with this award.

From top to bottom: Steve Sher, Chris Gangemi, Dave Hambourger, Brian Wanamaker, Peggy Davis, Bill Doyle, Sean Ginty, Pat Doyle, Ellen Duff and Arnie Gough.

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• Roy E. Barnes, Atlanta, GA
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• Stephen Cullen, Towson, MD
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• Toby H. Hollander, Portland, ME
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• Warren Sinsheimer, New York, NY
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• Arnold & Porter LLP, Washington, D.C.
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