Law Professor William Koski will receive the 2017 Miriam Aaron Roland Volunteer Service Prize for his two decades of inspiring and training the next generation of social justice lawyers and improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth.

The Haas Center for Public Service awards the Roland Prize annually to members of the faculty “who engage and involve students in integrating academic scholarship with significant and meaningful volunteer service to society.”

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In a letter nominating Koski for the award, Carly Munson, clinical supervising attorney and lecturer in law, wrote, “Bill Koski is a warrior for teaching Stanford Law School students practical lawyering skills, while helping underserved children and youth. … He solves clients’ problems – and teaches Stanford Law School students to do the same – by building and empowering communities and relationships.”

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Koski said that he is “humbled and honored” to be chosen for the Roland Prize and that, for him, clinical teaching “is a unique and privileged charge to always do something innovative and inspiring. Harnessing the power and reputation of Stanford Law School to do social justice lawyering is remarkable.”

He explained, “I hope that I can inculcate the value of doing social justice work, of understanding that we as lawyers have a privilege. We have access to these institutions; we have a kind of power that we can deploy for commercial gain, for a lot of good things. One of those good things really needs to be improving access to justice for those who don’t have it and improving the conditions for those who are suffering injustice.”

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“Being able to see someone who has stuck with this, especially with a group that people don’t usually pay attention to, I think that’s something that sticks out to a lot of students. It isn’t the one that gets all the massive headlines. That makes it so much more exciting and powerful,” said Stanford law student Kevin Rich. “Bill gave me the ability to help somebody, and now I’m invested.”