National Public Service Award Archives
2023 Recipient
The event was held at Paul Brest Hall on Monday, October 16, 2023, at 5:30pm.
Sasha Buchert
Sasha Buchert is a Senior Attorney in the Washington D.C. office of Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest organization dedicated to advancing the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and individuals living with HIV.
During her time at Lambda Legal, Sasha has been involved in extensive federal and state legislative and policy efforts on a wide range of issues including judicial nominations, criminal justice reform policy and health care initiatives. She is also litigating a number of cases expanding and solidifying federal civil rights protections for LGBTQ people. Most recently, she is counsel in Karnoski v. Trump, a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender people, and is counsel in Gore v. Lee, a federal lawsuit filed in Tennessee challenging that state’s refusal to amend birth certificates for transgender people.
Sasha has written about the legal issues facing LGBT people for publications including USA Today, Fox News, and Medium. She has appeared on the CNN, the PBS News Hour, C-SPAN, Newsy and Uprising.
Before joining Lambda Legal, Sasha served as Staff Attorney and Policy Counsel at Transgender Law Center. Sasha Buchert was the first openly transgender person to be appointed to an Oregon state board, and from 2012-13, she served as the chair of the Oregon State Hospital Advisory Board. She holds a J.D. from Willamette University. Sasha Buchert served proudly in the United States Marine Corps.
2022 Recipient
The event was held at Paul Brest Hall on Monday, October 17, 2022.
Silvia Argueta
Silvia Argueta has been the Executive Director at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) since 2008. LAFLA is the frontline law firm for low-income individuals in Los Angeles County. LAFLA is committed to promoting access to justice, strengthening communities, fighting discrimination, and effecting systemic change through representation, advocacy, and community education. Silvia leads a 180 staff non-profit law firm with five offices, four self-help centers, and three courthouse domestic violence clinics. She oversees an annual budget of over $32 million and all aspects of strategy, legal advocacy, finance, fund development, and technology. She recently oversaw an $18 million capital campaign and construction of LAFLA’s new headquarters, a cornerstone of justice that brings respect and dignity to both clients and staff. Silvia’s career has been devoted to achieving equal justice using direct representation, civil litigation and policy to effect change.
Prior to joining LAFLA in 1999, she was a staff attorney at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund where she worked on education, employment and immigration issues and prior to that at the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California where her work focused on civil rights litigation and policy. She attended UCLA and obtained her degrees in Political Science and French in 1985. She received her law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law in 1989.
2020 Recipient
Due to COVID-9 restrictions, we were unable to host our typical formal awards dinner nor schedule multiple events for students on campus. However, both recipients participated virtually and gave keynote addresses, held live Q&A sessions, and met with individual students as well as meet with affinity groups.
Amanda Alexander
Amanda Alexander, the founding Executive Director of the Detroit Justice Center, is a racial justice lawyer and historian who works alongside community-based movements to end mass incarceration and build thriving and inclusive cities. Originally from Michigan, she has worked at the intersection of racial justice and community development in Detroit, New York, and South Africa for more than 15 years.
Alexander is a Senior Research Scholar at University of Michigan Law School, where she has taught Law & Social Movements and was an attorney in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic. She was a 2015-2018 member of the Michigan Society of Fellows with appointments in Law and Afro-American & African Studies. As a Soros Justice Fellow, Alexander launched the Prison & Family Justice Project at University of Michigan Law School to provide legal representation to incarcerated parents and advocate for families divided by the prison and foster care systems. Alexander facilitated the Inside-Out Theory Group at Macomb Prison near Detroit for many years, and drove a successful effort to establish an Inside-Out Prison Exchange program at UM-Ann Arbor and local prisons.
She regularly provides assistance and training to community organizations, advocates, and government agencies working to promote successful re-entry, community safety, and economic equity. Alexander serves on the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, appointed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to develop ambitious and innovative strategies to reduce Michigan’s jail population. She has served on the national steering committee of Law for Black Lives, and is a board member of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership.
Alexander’s advocacy and research have won the support of an Echoing Green Fellowship, Law for Black Lives/Movement Law Lab Legal Innovator Fellowship, Social Science Research Council Fellowship, Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, and other fellowships and grants. She is the recipient of the NAACP-Detroit’s Great Expectations Award, the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative’s Racial Justice Cultivator Award, and the A. Philip Randolph Institute’s Community Builder Award.
Alexander received her JD from Yale Law School, her PhD in international history from Columbia University, and her BA from Harvard College. Previously she has worked with the Detroit Center for Family Advocacy, the Bronx Defenders, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the Centre for Civil Society in Durban, South Africa. As an Ella Baker Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, she assisted with litigation challenging stop-and-frisk policing. As a Fulbright-Hays Scholar, Alexander conducted research on land, housing, and inclusive cities in South Africa. Her writing has been published in The Globe & Mail, Detroit Free Press, Michigan Journal of Race & Law, Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy, Michigan Child Welfare Law Journal, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Review of African Political Economy, and other publications.
A recording of Alexander’s keynote address can be found here: “Defense, Offense, and Dreaming: Movement Lawyering in the Black Lives Matter Era”.
2019 Recipient
Yasmeen Hassan
Yasmeen Hassan is the Global Executive Director of Equality Now, a human rights organization focused on legal equality for women and girls, with offices in New York, London, Nairobi and Beirut and presences in Washington, DC, Tbilisi, Delhi, and Beijing. Yasmeen was with United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (2003-2008) where she worked on ensuring gender equality in laws of countries emerging from conflict and on the Secretary General’s study of violence against women. She practiced corporate law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and California (1995-2003), and she clerked on the DC Court of Appeals (1994-1995).
Equality for women has been a driving force for Yasmeen since an early age. She serves on the boards of Musawah (a movement for equality in the Muslim family) and the Global Women’s March, and on the advisory boards of The Women’s Building (New York), Gucci’s Chime for Change and The Council on Foreign Relations. She advocates for the women’s rights through appearances in numerous media outlets, including CNN, Al Jazeera, the Huffington Post, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Yasmeen holds a J.D., from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude) and a B.A in Political Science (magna cum laude) from Mount Holyoke College. She grew up in Lahore, Pakistan and lives in New York with her two wonderful sons.
2018 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
This year’s dinner was held on Wednesday, October 17, 2018 at the Paul Brest Hall in Munger Graduate Residence.
Julie A. Su
Julie A. Su is a nationally recognized expert on workers’ rights and civil rights who has dedicated her distinguished legal career to advancing justice on behalf of poor and disenfranchised communities. A MacArthur Foundation “Genius,” Su was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown and assumed the position of California Labor Commissioner in April 2011. A report on her tenure released in May 2013 found that her leadership has resulted in a renaissance in enforcement activity across the entire Division and record-setting results. In 2014, Su launched the “Wage Theft is a Crime” multi-media, multilingual campaign to reach out to low-wage workers and their employers to help them understand their rights and feel safe speaking up about labor law abuses. Prior to her appointment as Labor Commissioner, Su was the Litigation Director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-LA, the nation’s largest non-profit civil rights organization devoted to issues affecting the Asian American community. In her 17 years as a civil rights lawyer, Su brought landmark lawsuits resulting in millions of dollars for low-wage workers and policy changes in California and the United States protecting workers, students, consumers, immigrant victims of crime and human trafficking. Frequently named to top-lawyer lists such as the Daily Journal’s “Top 75 Women Litigators” in California and California Lawyer’s “Super Lawyers,” she was the first Labor Commissioner to be included among the Daily Journal’s “Top 75 Labor and Employment Lawyers” and has also been named one of the 50 most noteworthy women alumni of Harvard Law School and one of the 100 most “influential” people in Los Angeles in Los Angeles Magazine. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School.
2017 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
This year’s dinner was held on Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at the Paul Brest Hall in Munger Graduate Residence.
View Video of Tamika Butler’s speech
View Video of John Levin’s speech
View Transcript of John Levin’s speech
John Levin, MA ’70/JD ’73
John Levin is Chairman of Folger Levin LLP. His practice focuses on transactions and strategic advice for businesses, high net worth families and individuals, and non-profit organizations.
John received his law degree from Stanford Law School in 1973. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College in 1969 and a Master of Arts in Education from Stanford University in 1970. Following law school, John served for one year as law clerk to Associate Justice Stanley Mosk of the Supreme Court of California. In 1978, John co-founded Folger & Levin and served as its chairman and managing partner for nearly 30 years. He has been a member of the California Bar since 1973.
John is active in a wide range of community activities and has served on numerous boards. In 2009 he completed a ten year term as a Trustee of Stanford University, the last five years as Vice-Chair of the Board. He is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of Stanford Health Care, a member of the Board of Directors of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and served as Convening Co-Chair of the Campaign for Stanford Medicine. In 2015, Stanford awarded John its Gold Spike, the University’s highest recognition of volunteer leadership service. In 2016, the Stanford School of Medicine awarded John the Dean’s Medal, its highest honor. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of California, a founding member of the Board of Trustees of Coaching Corps and a member of the National Advisory Board of the Haas Center for Public Service. John has been active in the leadership of Stanford Law School, serving as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council, Co-Chair of the Campaign for Stanford Law School and a member of the Executive Committee of the school’s Board of Visitors. With his wife Terry, John established The John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law at Stanford Law School. John has also served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Claude and Louise Rosenberg, Jr. Family Foundation, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of Marin Country Day School, a member of the Board of Trustees of Marin Academy, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Little School, a member of the Advisory Board of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities, a member of Harvard University’s Committee on University Resources and a member of the Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Group of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
2016 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
This year’s dinner was held on Monday, October 10, 2016 at the Paul Brest Hall in Munger Graduate Residence.
The Honorable Thomas E. Perez
Thomas E. Perez, the nation’s 26th secretary of labor, has dedicated his entire career to making good on the promise of opportunity for all. A civil rights lawyer by training, Secretary Perez leads the U.S. Department of Labor in its mission of giving all Americans the chance to get ahead and stay ahead.
Under Secretary Perez’s leadership, priorities for the department include ensuring a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work through continued efforts to raise the minimum wage, expand overtime protections, and by being smarter and more strategic in the department’s enforcement of federal law. Secretary Perez strives every day to ensure that Americans return home from their jobs safe and healthy. Perez has made job training and workforce development a focal point of his tenure. With historic investments in community colleges and apprenticeships and the department’s implementation of the bipartisan Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, he is committed to connecting ready-to-work Americans with ready-to-be-filled jobs. His efforts to protect Americans’ hard-earned retirement savings include a proposed new rule to require financial advisers to put their customers’ best interest first. Additionally, Perez has kept up the drumbeat on state and local progress to expand access to paid leave. He also helps ensure that people with disabilities and veterans have access to employment opportunities and other supports to help them succeed.
During his tenure, Secretary Perez has collaborated with a wide variety of stakeholders – including private-sector employers, labor unions, nonprofits and foundations – to build a broad coalition and forge lasting partnerships to address inequality and create shared prosperity. Notably, President Obama tapped Secretary Perez to assist with a monthslong dispute at the West Coast ports, where he helped broker a deal between labor and management that enabled the ports to resume operations. He has earned a reputation for listening to all sides and crafting pragmatic solutions rooted in progressive values.
He has worked at all levels of government to move our country forward on a host of fundamental issues of fairness. Prior to his swearing in as secretary of labor, Secretary Perez served as assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he fought to protect voting rights, ensure that communities have effective and democratically accountable policing, crack down on discriminatory lending and housing, and expand opportunity for marginalized communities. As director of the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, he helped ensure that people of all backgrounds could access quality, affordable health care. Perez also tackled civil rights, criminal justice and constitutional issues as a special counselor for Sen. Ted Kennedy.
Secretary Perez also served the people of Maryland in a variety of roles. He was the first Latino elected to the Montgomery County Council, where he served from 2002 to 2006. Later, as secretary of Maryland’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation from 2007 to 2009, he helped implement the country’s first living wage law and spearheaded a package of reforms to address the foreclosure crisis.
The son of Dominican immigrants, Secretary Perez was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. Public service was the family business. Perez’s maternal grandfather was the ambassador to the United States from the Dominican Republic in the 1930s, until he spoke out against his home country’s brutal dictator and was declared non grata. Perez’s father, a physician, served in the U.S. Army and worked for many years at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Buffalo.
A graduate of Brown University and Harvard University, Perez has taught law and public health at universities in Maryland and the District of Columbia. He lives in Maryland with his wife, Ann Marie Staudenmaier, and their three children. An avid runner and athlete, he coaches his children’s basketball and baseball teams. He credits his unrelenting optimism to being a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan.
2015 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
This year’s dinner was held on Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at the Paul Brest Hall in Munger Graduate Residence.
The Honorable Myron H. Thompson
Judge Myron H. Thompson is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. 1969) and Yale Law School (J.D. 1972). He was nominated to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama in September 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. Judge Thompson served as Chief Judge from 1991 to 1998.
Judge Thompson served as Assistant Attorney General of Alabama from 1972 to 1974. He was the first African-American Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alabama, the first African-American bar examiner for the State, and the second African-American federal judge in the State. Judge Thompson was in private practice from 1974 until 1980. He was the Founding Director and Board Chairman of the Alabama Legal Services Corporation.
Judge Thompson has contributed to the development of legal scholarship by serving as Jurist in Residence at Pace Law School in 2012, delivering the Dean’s Lecture at Yale Law School in 2004, and serving as a New York University Law School Scholar in Residence in 1998 and 1999. He was the Eleventh Circuit’s District Judge Representative on the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2007 through 2011 and was chair of the District Judges Representatives to the Conference from 2010 through 2011.
In 2013, Judge Thompson was awarded the Thurgood Marshall Award by the National Bar Association’s Judicial Council in recognition of his “personal contributions and extraordinary commitment to the advancement of civil rights and for being a role model for members of the bench and bar.” He received the 2005 Mark De Wolfe Howe Award from the Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review “for his Unyielding Commitment to Advancing the Personal Freedoms and Human Dignities of the American People.” In 2008 he received the Judge Jane M. Bolin Service Award from the Yale Law School BLSA in recognition of his “Outstanding Dedication and Support to Yale BLSA and Contributions to the Legal Community.” In April 2009 he received the Ernestine Sapp Justice Award from Thomas Goode Jones Law School, as well as an Honoree Award from the Touro Law School BLSA. In May 2010, Thomas Goode Jones Law School awarded him an honorary J.D. degree.
2014 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
This year’s dinner was held on Monday, October 6, 2014 at the Paul Brest Hall in Munger Graduate Residence.
Marielena Hincapié
Marielena Hincapié is the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, the main organization dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants in the U.S. Under her executive leadership, NILC has grown to be one of the premier immigrants’ rights organizations, strategically using a combination of litigation, policy, communications, and alliance-building strategies to effect social change. Ms. Hincapié is highly respected for her legal and political strategies and is seen as a bridge builder within the immigrants’ rights field as well as across broader social justice sectors.
Fully bilingual and bicultural, Ms. Hincapié serves as a resource and is often interviewed by media outlets such as Univisión, Telemundo, CNN en Español, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. She also is a frequent lecturer at national and international conferences, addressing issues of migration, and she works closely with emerging leaders in the social justice movement. Ms. Hincapié began her tenure at NILC in 2000 as a staff attorney leading the organization’s labor and employment program. During that time, she successfully litigated law reform and impact-litigation cases dealing with the intersection of immigration laws and employment/labor laws. She then served as NILC’s director of programs from 2004 to 2008, after which she became executive director.
Before joining NILC, Ms. Hincapié worked for the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco’s Employment Law Center, where she founded the Center’s Immigrant Workers’ Rights Project. She holds a juris doctor degree from Northeastern University School of Law, served on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration, and is currently a member of the Jobs with Justice and Welcome.US boards of directors.
Ms. Hincapié immigrated as a child from Medellín, Colombia, to Central Falls, Rhode Island. She is the youngest of 10 children.
2013 Recipients
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
This year’s dinner was held on Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at the Graduate School of Business’ Schwab Residential Center. Pictured, left to right, are Professor Pam Karlan; Dean M. Elizabeth Magill; Roberta Kaplan; Jennifer Chang Newell, JD ’03; Terry Levin, BA ’74, MA ’81; and John Levin, MA ’70, JD ’73.
Roberta Kaplan and Professor Pam Karlan
National Public Service Award recipients for their work as co-counsel representing Edith Windsor in United States v. Windsor.
A partner in the Litigation Department at Paul Weiss, Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan has been described as a “powerhouse corporate litigator” and “pressure junkie” who “thrives on looking at the big picture” whether “in the gay-marriage legal fight or high-profile corporate scandals.” Robbie has been selected as one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers,” as one of “The 500 Leading Lawyers,” andas one of the top “40 Under 40” lawyers in the United States.
Robbie successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Edith Windsor in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court case that may be the most significant civil rights decision of our time. In Windsor, the nation’s highest court ruled that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violated the U.S. Constitution by barring legally married same-sex couples from enjoying the wide-ranging benefits of marriage conferred under federal law.
Robbie has published on a variety of legal topics, including the chapter, “Investigating the Case” in Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts, as well as the chapter, “Interplay Between Commercial Litigation and Criminal Proceedings” in Commercial Litigation in the Federal Circuit Courts. She also recently published an article entitled “Proof vs. Prejudice” in 37 N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change (2013). While serving as a senior law clerk to then Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, Robbie assisted Judge Kaye in connection with a number of articles, including State Courts at the Dawn of a New Century: Common Law Courts Reading Statutes and Constitutions, 70 NYU L Rev 1 35 (April 1995). Robbie also clerked for Judge Mark L. Wolf of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Robbie’s legal work has been honored by a number of organizations, including the New York City Council, the Family Equality Council, and the National Organization for Women. In 2011, she was honored as the distinguished alumna of the year by the Columbia Law School Women’s Association. She has also received the New York County Lawyers’ Association’s William Nelson Cromwell Award.
Robbie currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the New York County Lawyers’ Association. She served on New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman’s Task Force on Commercial Litigation in the 21st Century and continues to serve on The Commercial Division Advisory Council.
Pamela Karlan
A productive scholar and award-winning teacher, Pamela S. Karlan is also co-director of the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, where students litigate live cases before the Court. One of the nation’s leading experts on voting and the political process, she has served as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission and an assistant counsel and cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Professor Karlan is the co-author of leading casebooks on constitutional law, constitutional litigation, and the law of democracy, as well as numerous scholarly articles. She also writes a column on the Supreme Court and legal issues for the Boston Review.
Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1998, she was a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law and served as a law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Karlan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and the American Law Institute and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Constitution Society.
2012 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
This year’s awards dinner was held on Thursday, October 11, 2012 at the Paul Brest Hall in Munger Graduate Residence. Pictured are Nancy Rubin; Judge Patricia Wald; Dean Elizabeth Magill; former Associate Dean for Public Service and Public Interest Law, Diane Chin; David Sapp, JD ’05; Miles Rubin, JD ’52, BA ’50; and former Levin Center Executive Director, now current Associate Dean for Public Service and Public Interest Law, Anna Wang.
The Honorable Patricia M. Wald
Judge Patricia M. Wald has been a remarkable role model for a generation of public interest lawyers. She graduated from Connecticut College in 1948 and earned her law degree from Yale Law School in 1951. Upon graduation, she served as a clerk for Judge Jerome Frank of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the only woman to clerk on that Circuit that year. She later went to work at Arnold and Porter in Washington, DC before leaving the firm after about a year to join her Navy JAG husband, Robert, who had been assigned to duty in Norfolk. For almost a decade, Judge Wald stayed at home, devoting her energies to launching the lives of the couple’s five children and doing occasional legal research and writing. When she returned to the practice of law in the sixties, she worked in such diverse fields as criminal justice, juvenile law, mental disability law, drug abuse, poverty and public interest law, administrative law, constitutional law, judicial process, and women and the law. Judge Wald worked at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Criminal Justice, Washington D.C.’s Neighborhood Legal Services Program, the Center for Law and Social Policy, and the Mental Health Law Project, among others. She served in the Carter administration as Assistant Attorney General before being appointed as the first woman to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where she served as chief judge from 1986 until 1991. After 20 years on the federal bench, Judge Wald accepted an appointment to serve as a judge for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She later served as a member of the Iraq Intelligence Commission. In addition to her exceptional career as a jurist, she has taken on countless leadership roles in professional associations, national commissions and legal reform efforts in the United States and abroad.
2011 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
Pictured are former Associate Dean Diane Chin; Sharon Terman, JD ’04; Vernon Jordan; Terry Levin, BA ’74, MA ’81; John Levin, MA ’70, JD ’73; and Dean Larry Kramer.
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
Stanford Law School is delighted to honor Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. for his lifetime of public service and will present him with the 2011 National Public Service Award. Over the course of his career, Mr. Jordan has been a leader in the civil rights movement, starting from shortly after graduating from law school when he worked to empower African Americans in the South via community organizing and voter registration drives, including serving on the legal team that desegregated the University of Georgia. He later led several major organizations and successfully fundraised to finance black colleges, job training programs, early childhood education, and other causes dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty. Mr. Jordan has served as president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League, Inc.; executive director of the United Negro College Fund, Inc.; director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council; attorney-consultant at the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity; assistant to the executive director of the Southern Regional Council; Georgia field director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and as an attorney in private practice in Arkansas and Georgia. He also recently served as a member of the Iraq Study Group, of the United States Institute of Peace.
He is currently a partner at the investment firm of Lazard Frere & Company in New York and serves as Senior Managing Director of Lazard Group LLC. Mr. Jordan is also Of Counsel/Senior Counsel at Akin Gump.
Mr. Jordan’s presidential appointments include: the President’s Advisory Committee for the Points of Light Initiative Foundation; the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on South Africa; the Advisory Council on Social Security; and the Presidential Clemency Board.
Watch Mr. Jordan’s speech here.
2010 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
Pictured are Dean Larry Kramer; former Levin Center Executive Director, now current Associate Dean for Public Service and Public Interest Law, Anna Wang; Miles Rubin, JD ’52, BA ’50; John Levin, MA ’70, JD ’73; Bryan Stevenson; Lynne Echenberg, JD ’02; former Associate Dean, Diane Chin; Todd Rubin; and Terry Levin, BA ’74, MA ’81.
Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
EJI has recently succeeded in winning a ban on life imprisonment without parole sentences imposed on children convicted of most crimes in the U.S. and has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts. Mr. Stevenson’s work fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system has won him numerous awards including the ABA Wisdom Award for Public Service, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award Prize, the Olaf Palme International Prize, the ACLU National Medal Of Liberty, the National Public Interest Lawyer of the Year Award, the 2010 NAACP Ming Award for Advocacy and the 2009 Gruber Prize for International Justice. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government, has been awarded 12 honorary doctorate degrees and is also a Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law.
2009 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
Debo P. Adegbile
Debo P. Adegbile is the Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where he oversees the legal program and supervises the legal staff in the areas of Economic and Criminal Justice, Education, and Political Participation, while remaining actively engaged in litigation and advocacy including in a number of recent cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Previously Debo served as LDF’s Associate Director of Litigation, and Director of its Political Participation group. In the area of voting rights, Debo’s experience with LDF has encompassed constitutional cases, actions arising under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), among other statutes, as well as state and federal legislative advocacy.
Debo successfully argued against a constitutional challenge to the core federal preclearance provision of the VRA before a three-judge panel
in federal court in Washington D.C, and again in April of 2009 before the U.S. Supreme Court. That case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder, followed a multi-year effort and collaboration with numerous local and national partners that resulted in Congressional reauthorization of several important provisions of the VRA. In connection with that effort, Debo coordinated LDF’s activities, devised and executed the strategy for the national campaign, and helped to develop the Congressional record. Debo engaged in public education and debate in various community and media settings, and testified before both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in support of the VRA reauthorization.
2008 Recipient
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
Shannon Price Minter
Shannon Price Minter is the Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), one of the nation’s leading advocacy organizations for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
Mr. Minter was lead counsel for same-sex couples in the marriage case recently decided by the California Supreme Court, which held that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry and that laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation are inherently discriminatory and subject to the highest level of constitutional scrutiny. Shannon was also NCLR’s lead attorney on Sharon Smith’s groundbreaking wrongful death suit and has litigated many other impact cases in California and across the country.
In 2005, Mr. Minter was one of 18 people to receive the Ford Foundation’s “Leadership for a Changing World” award. In 2004, he was awarded an Honorary Degree from the City University of New York School of Law for his advocacy on behalf of same-sex couples and their families. Mr. Minter has also received the Anderson Prize Foundation’s Creating Change Award by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Distinguished National Service Award from GAYLAW, the bar association for LGBT lawyers, law students, and legal professionals in Washington, D.C., Cornell Law School’s Exemplary Public Service Award, the Unity Award from Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, the Advocacy Award from the San Francisco Bar Association, and the Justice Award from Equality California.
Mr. Minter has authored numerous articles and books on LGBT legal issues, including Transgender Rights (University of Minnesota Press 2006) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Family Law (West Publishing 2008). He has taught as an adjunct or associate professor at Boalt, Stanford, Golden Gate, Santa Clara, and the University of San Francisco Schools of Law.
Mr. Minter serves on the American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. He also serves on the boards of Equality California and the Transgender Law & Policy Institute.
Mr. Minter received his J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1993. He is originally from Texas.
and LAAC’s work, including the Bench Bar Coalition and committees of the California Access to Justice Commission.
Press Release
2007 Recipients
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Alumni Public Service Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
David Doniger
National Public Service Award Recipient
David Doniger is policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Climate Center, where he helps to develop environmental and energy policies that reduce the threat of global warming and enhance America’s energy security. David also leads NRDC’s work to complete the phase-out of chemicals that deplete the earth’s protective ozone layer.
David was a key lawyer in designing the strategy and drafting the briefs in Massachusetts v. EPA, the landmark Supreme Court decision last April holding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. David kept a 30-member coalition of states, cities, and environmental groups on course for four years through litigation before the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court. David is also the lead environmental lawyer in related cases defending California’s landmark standards for motor vehicle emissions of greehouse gases.
On the broader policy front, David has led NRDC’s efforts to design the architecture for sound national global warming legistation. His concepts, published in Science magazine last November, have found their way into the leading climate proposals introduced in the 110th Congress. David rejoined NRDC in March 2001 after serving for eight years in the Clinton administration, where he was director of climate change policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and, before that, counsel to the head of the EPA’s clean air program. He also served for a year at the Council on Environmental Quality. David helped to write the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act as well as the Clean Power Act, sponsored by
Senators Jeffords, Collins, and Lieberman. David heads a legal committee providing advice to the environmental coalition working for implementation of California’s clean car law (AB 1493).
David first began at NRDC in 1978 and worked on clean air issues for the next 14 years, helping to win the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments and the
1987 Montreal Protocol. David holds a law degree and a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. in history from Yale University.
Christopher Ho, JD ’87
Alumni Public Service Award Recipient
Christopher Ho, JD ’87 is a senior staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center (“LAS-ELC”) in San Francisco, where he litigates cases in defense of the employment rights of historically subordinated communities. His primary focus for over a decade has been on efforts to challenge and rectify workplace practices that disproportionately impact national origin minorities, particularly recent immigrants.
As Director of the LAS-ELC’s National Origin, Immigration, and Language Rights Program, Chris has taken on challenging, leading-edge issues that are facing immigrant workers as our country grows more diverse. He has pioneered legal challenges to “English-only” policies and arbitrary English language proficiency requirements that are often covert means for employers to target immigrants. He has spoken in numerous public and professional settings on the subject of language rights, and has testified on the subject before Congress and the California Legislature.
Additionally, Christopher devotes an increasing portion of his work to litigation aimed at affirming and expanding the employment rights of undocumented workers. Chris has worked over the past six years to prove a basic principle: that undocumented status does not mean these workers have given up all their rights under U.S. law, or that unscrupulous employers are free to exploit or mistreat them with impunity. He has also litigated in other areas of employment law in both the federal and state courts, including race and sexual orientation discrimination, workplace privacy, and the asserted preemption of workers’ rights.
Christopher is a former member of the Boards of Directors of the East Palo Alto Community Law Project, the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, and Asians for Job Opportunities in the Bay Area, and is a past chair of the Human Rights Committee of the State Bar of California. Presently, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Windcall Futures Project. He received his undergraduate degree cum laude in political science from Yale, holds an A.M. in government from Harvard, and is a graduate of Stanford Law School, during which time he was a judicial extern for U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson.
Press Release
2006 Recipients
The National Public Service Award is designated for an attorney whose work on behalf of the public has had national impact, and the Alumni Public Service Award will be given annually to a Stanford Law School alumnus/a who has similarly engaged in public service and had a significant impact on the nation or community.
William P. Quigley
National Public Service Award Recipient
Quigley, an active public interest lawyer since 1977, served as General Counsel for the ACLU of Louisiana for over 15 years. Quigley has served as an advisor on human and civil rights to Human Rights Watch USA and Amnesty International USA. In 2003, he was named the Pope Paul VI National Teacher of Peace by Pax Christi USA; in 2004 he received the SALT Teaching Award presented by the Society of American Law Teachers; and in 2006, he received the Camille Gravel Civil Pro Bono Award from the Federal Bar Association New Orleans Chapter. Quigley is also an active volunteer lawyer with School of the Americas Watch and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
Christa Gannon, JD ’97
Alumni Public Service Award Recipient
Christa Gannon, JD ’97 was selected as one of ten people in the United States to receive funding from the George Soros Foundation to develop an innovative criminal justice program. With this seed funding Gannon started FLY. FLY strives to reduce juvenile crime and incarceration through legal education, mentoring and leadership training. By providing at-risk and disadvantaged youth with vital information regarding the decisions they make in their lives, FLY has helped nearly 10,000 youth avoid the criminal justice system and transform from delinquent youth into positive community leaders. In recognition of Gannon’s abilities, in the fall of 2000, she was selected by the National Law-Related Education Consortium to be California’s State Coordinator of Law-Related Education. In this capacity she acts as the expert for the State of California supporting individuals and organizations that want to start law-related education projects. Gannon is the youngest state coordinator in the country.