WASHINGTON, DC, May 13, 2005 — The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is pleased to announce that William L. Grimm, senior attorney for the National Center for Youth Law, and Brownlow M. Speer, chief appellate attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, are the 2005 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 Hotel in Washington, DC, on June 7.

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 a great privilege to recognize Bill Grimm and Brownlow Speer for their outstanding dedication to the pursuit of justice for America’s low-income communities," said Clint Lyons, NLADA president and CEO. "Both Grimm and Speer exemplify the very best of advocates in the equal justice community, as evidenced by Grimm’s decades of commitment to improving the lives of children in states across the country and by Speer’s tireless efforts on behalf of low-income clients."

William Grimm has dedicated his entire 30-year legal career to advocating for children. Since joining the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) in 1988, Grimm has focused exclusively on improving the lives of foster children in states across the country. As a litigator, Grimm has won landmark victories on behalf of foster children in Maryland, Arkansas, Utah and Washington, and has provided invaluable support and advice to countless advocates who also work on behalf of children. In August 2004, Grimm garnered a victory on behalf of abused and neglected children in the state of Washington. He became involved in the Braam v. DSHS case while helping a private attorney who was representing 13 foster children harmed by repeated moves from one foster home to another. The case went to the Washington Supreme Court, which upheld a lower court decision that the state’s practice of repeatedly moving foster children from place to place, causing these children severe emotional harm, was unconstitutional. As a result of Grimm’s efforts and others at NYCL, as well as those of his co-counsel, the state is now required to provide foster children with stable, safe and appropriate placements; mental health screening and treatment; and placement or visitation with siblings.

Grimm actively works with child advocates in Nevada to improve conditions for foster children and has helped draft pending legislation in California aimed at improving the leadership and accountability of the state’s child welfare system. His advocacy efforts and investigation of policies and practices of many child welfare systems has resulted in three major class action lawsuits in Arkansas (Angela R. v. Clinton), Utah (David C. v. Leavitt), and Washington (Braam v. DSHS). All three of these lawsuits resulted in sweeping reforms in their respective states.

Brownlow M. Speer has inspired generations of new lawyers to follow their hearts and their principles into defense for the indigent through his own tireless efforts as a champion of equal justice under the law.

In affirmation of Speer’s remarkable career in the defense of the indigent, William J. Leahy, chief counsel of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), notes that “in the 25 years of [Browny’s] leadership of our vaunted statewide appellate defender unit, no incarcerated client has ever gone unvisited; no case has ever been submitted on briefs, without vigorous oral argument to the appellate tribunal; no client has ever been left to his or her pro se devices by an attorney’s resort to an Anders-type brief; and no affirmative conviction by our intermediate appellate court has ever gone unchallenged by a strong application for Further Appellate Review to the Supreme Judicial Court, unless the client, after consultation, had explicitly waived his or her right to seek such relief from conviction.” Additionally, Speer is credited with providing great guidance and inspiration to the construction of litigation in the Lavallee v. Justices of the Hampden Superior Court (July 28, 2004), whereby the challenge of inadequate hourly rates of assigned criminal defense counsel resulted in the historic decision by a unanimous court declaring that those rates violated the constitutional right of indigent defendants to the effective assistance of counsel. The decision led directly to an interim hourly increase and the creation of a Counsel Commission that is on the cusp of recommending further increases.

For more information on the Kutak-Dodds Prizes, contact Sara Fusco, assistant director of development, at (202) 452-0620, ext. 232, or via e-mail at s.fusco@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.