Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Thursday, October 30, 2008

 

Page 3

 

NLADA Honors Public Defender Judge

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association announced yesterday that it will honor Los Angeles County Public Defender Michael P. Judge at its annual awards luncheon in Washington D.C. on Nov. 21.

Judge will be the recipient of the Reginald Heber Smith Award, which recognizes the dedicated service and outstanding achievements of a civil legal aid attorney or indigent defense attorney while employed by an organization supporting such services, the organization said in a release.

The award is named for a former counsel at the Boston Legal Aid Society and the author of Justice and the Poor, published by the Carnegie Foundation in 1919.

The association, founded in 1911, claims to be the oldest and largest national nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice.

As public defender, Judge is responsible for 40 offices and more than 700 lawyers and serves as the primary legal advisor for low-income people in Los Angeles who are charged with a crime.

He was appointed to his position by the Board of Supervisors in 1994, and his career with the office has spanned more than 30 years.

The organization will also honor Andrew F. Susko a partner with the Philadelphia law firm of White and Williams; Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr., executive director of the Legal Aid Bureau of Maryland; and Steven C. Moore, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund.

 

 

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