FBA Annual Awards Dinner

One of my many obligations last week was to present the Utah Chapter of the Federal Bar Association's inaugural Pro Bono Award. I was so excited to give out this award because the recipient, Judge Brook Wells, is so deserving, but I was so nervous! I know this sound funny coming from someone whose profession revolves around public speech, but this was a lot more intimidating because I was not just speaking to one judge, but a whole room full of them. There were around 120 people there and most of them were attorneys that had been practicing 10-30+ years or judges. Only the most saddistic person would ever volunteer to speak to a room full of attorneys, who are generally the most critical audience.

Also, I worried about not doing justice to Judge Well's amazing accomplishments. She is such an inspiration to me. She almost did not get admitted to law school and now she is a very impressive federal judge who has gone beyond her ordinary judicial responsibilities to set up programs to help those less fortunate. I first came into contact with Judge Wells as the FBA's pro bono coordinator. She contacted me to see if the FBA would be willing to help the district court set up a program to appoint counsel in pro se civil cases. These are generally cases where the plaintiff has asserted a civil rights claim against the government and the judge feels that the case has some merit, but that the plaintiff should be represented. The Judge may appoint counsel, but the process until this year has been ad hoc. Now, we have developed a Federal Appointment Wheel where the judge can easily determine who to appoint by looking at the list of 20+ law firms that have volunteered to take these cases on pro bono.

Although I am very proud of this program, it is only one of Judge Well's many projects. She was also the driving force behind RISE, a federal re-entry program that helps those with drug addiction or mental health issues re-enter society after incarceration. On its most basic level, the drug and mental health courts provide weekly support to the participants who are carefully selected and focus on treating the issues rather than the threat of re-incarceration to reduce recidivism. The federal mental health court was the first of its in kind in the nation. The drug court was one of the first. Most impressive of all this is that the Judge knows each of the participants and, you can tell from talking to her, has very high hopes for their futures.

So you can see why I was a little intimidated giving the award to such an impressive woman.