WASHINGTON, DC, October 29, 2002 — The National Legal Aid & Defender Association is pleased to announce the creation of the Pierce-Hickerson Award. Its first recipient is Peterson Zah, a legendary activist on issues affecting Native Americans. Zah will be honored during the NLADA 2002 Annual Conference Awards Dinner on Friday, November 15, at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center in Wisconsin.

Honoring outstanding contributions to the advancement or preservation of Native American rights, the Pierce-Hickerson Award was created this year by advocates in civil legal assistance programs to pay homage to the legacies of Julian Pierce and Robert Hickerson for their outstanding advocacy in pursuit of justice for Native Americans. Pierce was a Lumbee Indian who served as executive director of Lumbee River Legal Services in Pembroke, North Carolina, from 1978 until 1988. Hickerson served as director of Alaska Legal Services Corporation for 20 years, and prior to that was director of the Oklahoma Legal Services Center.

"Mr. Zah is a highly revered gentleman in the Native American community for his more than 30 years of advocacy on behalf of his people," said Steve Moore, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund. "He has zealously advocated for fair treatment and to level the field for Native Americans in their daily business transactions, where they are potential victims due to their cultural, financial, educational and language barriers. He's an educated man that has never taken his good fortune for granted, and he's given back to his people a hundred times over."

Zah, a Dinéh from the Navajo Nation, has worked for more than 30 years on issues affecting Native Americans. From 1967 to 1982 he was executive director of DNA People's Legal Services, a program for the Navajo, Hopi and Apache people in the Four Corners area of Arizona. During his tenure at DNA, Zah succeeded in winning some landmark cases including several cases that established Indian sovereignty before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He served as chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council from 1983-1987. In 1990, under a new tribal government organization, Zah was elected again – this time as president of the Navajo Nation and served a four-year term, making him the last tribal chairman and the first president of the Navajo Nation.

Since 1995, Zah has been special advisor for Native American affairs to the president of Arizona State University. Since Zah went to Arizona State, the Native American student population has increased by more than 60 percent, and the student persistency and retention rates have doubled. These numbers represent the highest of any major college or university in the country.

For more information on the 2002 Pierce-Hickerson Award, visit www.nlada.org.

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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members. Founded in 1911, NLADA is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all Americans.