As part of its annual meeting being held this week in Dearborn, the State Bar of Michigan will host a banquet tonight at which time seven major awards will be presented.
The Roberts P. Hudson Award will be presented posthumously to James Robinson, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, a professor and dean of Wayne State University Law School, president of the State Bar of Michigan and principal author of the Rules of Evidence adopted by the Michigan Supreme Court in 1978.
Nationally, he distinguished himself as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton Administration.
But, according to the State Bar, it wasn’t titles that made him a giant among attorneys.
“He modeled greatness at the Bar and in his personal life. … A life like his speaks of what law and lawyers are all about more loudly and more clearly than a library of books or a sheaf of committee resolutions about professional responsibility,” wrote Professor John W. Reed in a letter of support for the nomination. Robinson died last August after a battle with cancer.
The Frank J. Kelley Distinguished Public Service award is being awarded to 10th District Court Judge John Hallacy, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Milton Mack Jr. and former Grand Rapids Mayor John Logie.
The State Bar this year is presenting a new award — the John W. Reed Michigan Lawwyer Legacy Award, to Professor Harold Norris.
The award, according to the State Bar, will be presented periodically to a professor from a Michigan law school whose influence on Michigan lawyers has elevated the quality of legal practice in Michigan.
Throughout his 35-year-long career at Detroit College of Law (now Michigan State University School of Law), Norris taught Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Women and the Law to more than 5,000 students.
The Champion of Justice Award recipients are: Jacqueline Doig, Barry Howard, Edward Pappas, Kary Moss, Professor Monica Nuckolls; Judge M.T. Thompson Jr. and Rebecca Shiemke.
Jacqueline Doig has devoted her career to helping indigent people get justice for 22 years at Legal Services of Eastern Michigan, and since 1996 for the Center for Civil Justice.
In October 2009, the State Bar of Michigan convened the Judicial Crossroads Task Force to identify how Michigan’s justice system can meet the needs of the public in the face of unprecedented economic upheaval. Barry L. Howard and Edward H. Pappas led the effort.
Kary Moss has served as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan since 1998. During her tenure, the ACLU of Michigan has expanded from a membership of 6,000 to 16,000.
Cooley Law School Professor Monica Nuckolls and her father, 70th District Court Judge M. T. Thompson, Jr., wrote two books books as part of a drug abuse and crime prevention program they developed and have presented to kids in troubled Saginaw-area schools.
Rebecca Shiemke serves as managing attorney of the Family Law Project of Legal Services of South Central Michigan and state support specialist on family law for the Michigan Poverty Law Program. She has been a volunteer for 12 years on the Battered Women’s Justice Project and served 18 years on SBM’s Domestic Violence Committee.
Kimberly M. Cahill Bar Leadership Award winners are Lisa Kirsch Satawa and James Samuels, longtime Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan (CDAM) Board of Directors members.
Elizabeth Joy Fossel — who has worked on 15 pro bono cases, donating a total of 1,520 hours of her time, worth just under $400,000 — will be honored with the John W. Cummiskey Pro Bono Award
Kate White and Judy Ellis are receiving the Liberty Bell award.
Since 1981, Judy Ellis has served as executive director of First Step, an agency that works with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in Wayne County.
As its executive director since 1996, Kate White has guided Elder Law of Michigan from a fledgling organization into a nationally recognized resource for elderly adults.
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