Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services
Seeks Nominations for 2009 Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards

           Nominations should be submitted to: Richard McMahon, Esq., The 2009 Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards, c/o New Center for Legal Advocacy, Inc., 18 Main Street Extension, Third Floor, Plymouth, MA 02360, or to rmcmahon@ncla.net For inquiries, the telephone number is 508-591-6680. Nominations submitted in 2008 remain active for consideration in the 2009 awards program.

           This year the prestigious Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards will be presented in a ceremony at the John Adams Courthouse on October 28, 2009. The date was selected to coincide with the recognition of the National Pro Bono Celebration from October 25-31, 2009, sponsored by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service.

           Named in honor of Attorneys John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards recognize individual lawyers, small and large law firms, government attorney offices, corporate law departments, and other institutions in the legal profession in Massachusetts that have “enhanced the human dignity of others by improving or delivering volunteer legal services to our Commonwealth’s poor and disadvantaged.”

           The Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services will select awardees from among those who have excelled in providing volunteer services in one or more of the following ways:

1)	volunteer participation in an activity or pro bono program which resulted in satisfying previously unmet needs or in extending services to underserved segments of the population;
2)	successfully litigated pro bono cases that favorably affected the provision of other services to the poor; and/or
3)	successfully achieved legislation that contributed substantially to legal services to the poor.

           In 2008, awards were presented to Attorney John G. Dugan of Millis, a principal in the law firm of Doherty, Ciechanowski, Dugan & Cannon, P.C. in Franklin and Medfield and Attorney Edward Notis-McConarty of Newton, a partner in the Boston law firm of Hemenway & Barnes LLP; Francis J. (Jay) Lynch III, of North Easton, managing partner in Lynch & Lynch Attorneys of Boston and South Easton; and Attorneys Christine J. Wichers of Cambridge and Lisa M. Gaulin of South Boston, of Choate Hall & Stewart LLP in Boston.

           Established in August 1999, the Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services works to promote volunteer legal work in Massachusetts to help people of limited means who are in need of legal representation, in accordance with SJC Rule 6.1, Voluntary Pro Bono Publico Service ("for the public good"). Attorney Mary Ryan, of Nutter, McClennen & Fish LLP, chairs the Committee.