GPSLD Shines a Light on Outstanding Public Sector Lawyers

The Dorsey Award

The Dorsey Award celebrates an outstanding public defender or legal aid lawyer. This year’s winner, Ann Marie Miller, is the first public defender working with Native American communities to be bestowed with the honor. Ms. Miller, a career public defender, has worked on behalf of Native American people for 25 years and has managed the Tribal Defenders Office for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation for almost 16 years. During her tenure, Ms. Miller has deftly negotiated the complex intersection of tribal and federal law while respecting tribal culture. Because the right to public defense is available in very limited circumstances under the Indian Civil Rights Act, 25 U.S.C. §1302, funding for defense services is supported by the limited resources of the tribes or from grants. Ms. Miller was able to obtain a grant to work with the Bronx Defenders to develop and implement the first tribal holistic defense model in the nation. Driver’s license restoration assistance, representation of parents in child protection proceedings, and sobriety support groups are among the holistic services now being offered to clients by her office. During her tenure on the Montana Public Defender Commission, Ms. Miller introduced the concept of holistic defense to Montana’s public defenders, with the result that, in 2017, Montana passed legislation requiring the Montana Office of State Public Defender to implement holistic defense pilot projects modeled after the program she created. Recognizing that traditional assessment tools do not accurately predict the behaviors of the tribal population, Ms. Miller worked with psychologists to develop a tool that more accurately predicts recidivism among her constituency. For all that she has done on behalf of her clients and the contributions she has made to the practice of law, Ms. Miller is a worthy recipient of the Dorsey Award.

The Hodson Award

The Hodson Award celebrates sustained outstanding performance or a specific and extraordinary service by a government or public sector law office. This year, the award was given to two recipients: the Access to Justice Department of the Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts and the Maryland Office of the Attorney General. The Access to Justice Department, whose mission is to develop and implement initiatives to expand access to and enhance the quality of justice in Maryland courts, is staffed by four attorneys, three certified court interpreters, and two administrative assistants. Pamila Ortiz is its director. The two major initiatives of the department are supporting access to the courts for pro se litigants and providing language access services in Maryland courts. Through a contract with the Maryland Center for Legal Assistance (MCLA), a subsidiary of Maryland Legal Aid, the Access to Justice Department operates walk-in centers located in eight courts, which serve approximately 20,000 people. The department also manages a call center, operated by MCLA, which provides legal help in all manner of civil cases, a service that was critically important during the COVID-19 pandemic when court operations were limited to emergency matters. The call center served 80,860 individuals during the 2020 fiscal year. Access to Justice also created a mobile app that provides access to legal information and court services from mobile devices, allowing users to call or click to chat directly with an attorney. The department maintains language portals on the judiciary’s website in Chinese, French, Korean, Russian, and Spanish, which provide basic legal information, information on how to request an interpreter, brochures, forms, and information about the Maryland courts in the target language. Access to Justice recruits and trains interpreters and provides statewide interpreter management software and translations of court forms. Access to Justice’s language access team geared up quickly during the pandemic to train interpreters and support courts in the use of remote interpreting using the Zoom interpretation feature. When asked what it meant to her and her staff to receive the Hodson Award, Ms. Ortiz responded, “We at Access to Justice are deeply honored to receive this acknowledgment from our colleagues in the public sector bar. As attorneys in public service, we evaluate our work by the impact we have. Our team is motivated each day by our vision of a justice system accessible to all. We are especially grateful for this recognition because it allows us to raise the profile of the services and programs we operate for the benefit of all.”

Attorney General Brian E. Frosh is the chief legal officer of Maryland. He and his staff act as legal advisors and representatives of the agencies, various boards, commissions, officials, and institutions in all matters in which the interests of the State of Maryland are involved. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Frosh’s office was uniquely positioned to provide comprehensive and immediate aid with respect to the civil justice system, including issues related to health, food, housing, employment, finances, abuse, and end of life. Attorney General Frosh partnered with the Access to Justice Commission, of which he was a member, to create the Maryland Attorney General’s COVID-19 Access to Justice Task Force. The Task Force, composed of leaders in the public and private sectors with experience and expertise in myriad fields, had as its mission ensuring that the citizens of Maryland had adequate housing, economic security, sufficient food, and meaningful and fair access to the civil justice system. The Task Force was able to deliver 7.1 million dollars in emergency funding to the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in Maryland. The Task Force held 12 virtual community forums in English and Spanish to hear from citizens regarding the challenges they were facing because of the pandemic and to deliver information about available resources. The Task Force created online Civil Justice Data Dashboards to provide current information about the pandemic’s impact on the civil justice system. In addition, the Task Force drafted a substantive law handbook and resource manual for life and health planning and launched a microsite on consumer law issues. The Advisory Committee to the Task Force produced a final report entitled Confronting the COVID-19 Access to Justice Crisis, which contains almost 60 substantive recommendations that will help address the pandemic’s ongoing challenges and fix some long-standing problems in the systems on which the state relies in emergencies like the pandemic. When asked what receiving the award meant to his agency, Attorney General Frosh stated, “I am honored that the Maryland Office of the Attorney General was chosen to receive the distinguished Hodson Award. It’s a privilege to work among the dedicated staff and attorneys in my office, individuals that are committed to public service and protecting the citizens of Maryland. This recognition will inspire us to continue to seek justice and fairness for the clients and the citizens we serve.”

The Nelson Award

The Nelson Award honors outstanding contributions to the American Bar Association by a government or public sector lawyer. The 2021 recipient of the award is Tara Isa Koslov, deputy director of the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission. Ms. Koslov’s association with the ABA began when she was a student at Harvard Law School. Her contributions to the Antitrust Law Section’s annual update to Antitrust Law Developments earned her an acknowledgment credit. In 1997 Ms. Koslov was named an assistant editor of the Antitrust Law Section’s revered Antitrust Law Journal. Because of her knowledge and exceptional writing skills, she would go on to become an associate editor, then the senior editor, and finally editorial co-chair of the publication, all while developing her career at the Federal Trade Commission and raising a family. Ms. Koslov took on other leadership roles within the Section, including membership in the Long-Range Planning Committee, the Nominating Committee, the Advisory Board on Section Reserves, and Section Council. She is currently a member of the Section’s Integrated Marketing Initiative, a special operations team involved in strategic planning to ensure the Section’s long-term viability and success. Ms. Koslov has acted as a mentor to law students and young lawyers and has championed women as leaders within the Section, leading the Section’s “Women.Connected” initiative to create a day in her honor. Upon learning that she had received the Nelson Award, Ms. Koslov shared, “I am so honored and delighted to receive this award! I’m coming up on 25 years of FTC service, and soon after that I’ll celebrate the 25th anniversary of my first official leadership appointment in the Antitrust Law Section. Both professionally and personally, each role has enriched the other. I am grateful to my agency for continually supporting my ABA involvement, which I’m certain has made me a better antitrust lawyer. And I’m thankful to my ABA colleagues for allowing me to add value without ever compromising my public role.” With her record of superior accomplishments within the ABA, Ms. Koslov is a shining example of what the Nelson Award epitomizes.

“The work of these awardees reflects how public lawyers are addressing key issues facing our nation,” said Steve Vieux, 2020–2021 chair of the GPSLD. “Public lawyers work hard every day to improve our communities and ensure that our governments function effectively. We are proud to highlight the outstanding achievements of our national award winners, lawyers who exemplify public service at its finest.”

To learn more about GPSLD’s awards program:

Visit: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/government_public/awards.

Next year’s nomination deadline is April 8, 2022.