WASHINGTON, DC, May 14, 2004 — The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is pleased to announce that William J. Brennan, Jr., director of the Home Defense Project of Atlanta Legal Aid Society, and Roberto Nájera, deputy public defender in the Alternate Defenders Office for Contra Costa County in California, are this year's winners of the prestigious Kutak-Dodds Prizes. Jointly sponsored by NLADA and the Robert J. Kutak Foundation, each prize carries a cash award of $10,000. The winners will receive their awards during the NLADA Exemplar Awards Dinner at The Capital Hilton in Washington, DC, on June 17.

The Kutak-Dodds Prizes, awarded annually, honor the accomplishments of civil legal aid attorneys, public defenders and public interest advocates who, through the practice of law, are contributing in a significant way to the enhancement of human dignity and quality of life of those persons unable to afford legal representation.

"It is my high privilege to recognize Roberto Nájera and Bill Brennan for their outstanding dedication to the pursuit of justice for America’s low-income communities," said Clint Lyons, NLADA president and CEO. "Both Nájera and Brennan exemplify the very best that public defenders and legal aid attorneys can be, as evidenced by their respective achievements, varied leadership roles and outstanding legal work."

Bill Brennan is a leading national advocate in countering predatory lending practices and has dedicated his entire 35-year legal career to providing justice for low-income clients. For the last 15 years, he has served as the director of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society’s Home Defense Program, which provides legal representation and referrals for largely poor and elderly homeowners and home buyers who are victims of a variety of home equity and purchase schemes, including predatory mortgage lending and foreclosure assistance fraud.

He is highly regarded within the legal services community especially for his work in the early 1990s to stop the predatory lending practices of Fleet Finance, Inc. After two years of litigation, Brennan negotiated an extremely favorable settlement for his clients, most of whom were elderly homeowners living on limited Social Security and SSI benefits. He also inspired and supported an investigation of Fleet by the Georgia Attorney General’s office which led to an unprecedented $115 million settlement against the company.

Brennan also worked extensively with the media to expose predatory lending practices and their effect on the lives of low-income homeowners. Segments appeared on 60 Minutes and NBC Nightly News and numerous major stories ran in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Boston Globe. These new stories and litigation attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress. In 1994, after several hearings at which Brennan’s clients testified, Congress passed the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act, which requires special disclosures for high-cost mortgage loans and prohibits certain abusive terms in the loans.

Brennan has also challenged kickbacks to mortgage brokers, a practice that increases substantially the already high cost of subprime mortgage loans. He successfully litigated the issue under the federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) and served on the HUD-created Negotiated Rulemaking Advisory Committee on RESPA. In 1997, Brennan coauthored an amicus brief in a case before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on a successful challenge to the legality of kickbacks under RESPA. Brennan’s efforts are in large part the very reason that the word “predatory lending” is in the public vocabulary today.

Roberto Nájera has dedicated his life’s work to championing the plight of the underdog. The fifth of six children, Nájera grew up in poverty, at times working the fields with his siblings to help earn money. Against the advice of his high school counselor who encouraged him and other minority students to seek vocational jobs, he enrolled at UC Santa Cruz as a sociology major and eventually obtained a law degree from Harvard University. Nájera’s desire to give back led to his return to California in 1983 to begin his career with La Raza Centro Legal, representing low-income clients in eviction and immigration matters. He went into private practice for one year in 1987, returning to public service work in 1988 with the Legal Aid Society of Marin and Legal Aid Society of Contra Costa. In 1989, he went to work for the Office of the Public Defender for Contra Costa County, where he has been representing low-income adults and minors from initial court appearance through trial and sentencing, primarily in felony cases.

One of the defining moments of Nájera’s legal career came in 2003 when he argued and won a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court – Stogner v. California. In 1998, Nájera was assigned a case in which his client was arrested and charged with molesting his two daughters between 1955 – 1973. When his client’s alleged offenses occurred, the statute of limitations was three years. However, the prosecutors used a 1994 California law that permitted filing of charges within a year of the report regardless of when the crime allegedly occurred. Recognizing that his client’s constitutional rights under the Ex Post Facto clause were violated, Nájera filed a petition challenging the state law through the California court system, which was denied. Undeterred by the state court’s decision, Nájera took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he ultimately obtained a ruling that overturned the California law.

The decision resulted in the dismissal of numerous cases and in the release of defendants wrongfully convicted and sentenced under this unconstitutional law. Because it is rare for a deputy public defender to take a case from the trial level and handle it through the entire appellate process, Nájera’s determination and accomplishments are considered an amazing feat.

For more information on the Kutak-Dodds Prizes, contact Mizue Suito, director of development, at (202) 452-0620, ext. 217, or via e-mail at m.suito@nlada.org.

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Established in 1989 and presented each year at the NLADA Exemplar Awards Dinner in Washington, DC, the Kutak-Dodds Prizes are jointly sponsored by NLADA and the Robert J. Kutak Foundation. The award is named for the late Robert J. Kutak, a member of the first Legal Services Corporation board and the late Kenneth R. Dodds, former partner in the Omaha office of Kutak Rock. Kutak dedicated his career to public service and legal education, and Dodds was well known for his life-long interest in providing legal services to the disadvantaged.

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), founded in 1911, is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating for equal access to justice for all Americans. 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.