TRIAL LAWYER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Read about the newly announced 2009 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award winners!
Trial lawyers have a special commitment to justice. Their advocacy skills breathe life into the rights of individuals and groups that have suffered injustice and harmful abuses.
Every year, trial lawyers provide millions of people with the means to obtain justice. In the majority of these cases, the client is an individual who has been damaged in some way -- physically, mentally, emotionally, monetarily -- by the wrongful conduct of a business or corporation.
These David-and-Goliath battles for legal justice usually pit the enormous financial resources of the bureaucratic or business defendant against the meager resources of the injured plaintiff. Ironically, plaintiffs’ attorneys are not generally paid unless they win.
However, many trial lawyers take great risk and overcome incredible odds to advance the common law, to make new law, and to win justice for their clients and for the common good of the public.
Our publication, Trial Lawyers Doing Public Justice, honors each year's winners and finalists in the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award. Read the annual publications here.
The winners of the 2009 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award were announced at our Annual Gala and Awards Dinner on July 28, 2009 in San Francisco, where we also honored the three other finalists for the award.
Read our nominations guidelines for the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award. (Note: Nominations for the 2010 Award will open on March 16, 2010.)
ROSCOE HOGAN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW ESSAY CONTEST
Established in 1970 by the prominent environmental lawyer, the late Roscoe B. Hogan of Birmingham, Alabama, the annual law school essay contest provides law students an opportunity to investigate and offer solutions to the multitude of injustices inflicted on the environment. Any student currently enrolled in an accredited American law school may submit a legal essay for the competition.
The author of the winning essay will win $5,000 and publication of his or her essay in the Vermont Law School’s online Journal of Environmental Law.
The 2009 topic was "Pollution Preemption: Federal Preemption of State Tort Law and Environmental Protection." Read the winning 2009 essay by Ryan Hackney, a 2009 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.
The 2010 contest topic will be announced in September, 2009. Click here to read contest guidelines and criteria.