Charles Dorsey Award (biennial)

You are here

The Charles Dorsey Award is given biennially to an individual who has provided extraordinary and dedicated service to the equal justice community and to organizations that promote expanding and improving access to justice for low-income people. To be eligible to receive this award, an individual must have demonstrated a commitment to equal justice for all through service as an officer, board or committee member of a national or statewide organization devoted to fulfilling the promise of equal justice.

Charles Dorsey winners listing

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2020
Recipient(s) name:

Deborah Perluss

Recipient title:
Deputy Director
Recipient organization:
Northwest Justice Project
Seattle, Washington
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

Deborah Perluss is currently the deputy director of Northwest Justice Project (NJP), the statewide legal aid provider in Washington. Until April of 2019, she served for 23 years in the dual role as NJP’s director of advocacy/general counsel, leading NJP’s strategic advocacy and systemic focus work. Before that, she served for 10 years as litigation, advocacy, and training coordinator for Evergreen Legal Services and for four years as a staff attorney at Spokane Legal Services, where she began her Washington legal aid career in 1978.

She received her J.D. from University of California Hastings College of Law and an LL.M. degree, with distinction, from University of London, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Her vision for what a legal aid lawyer should be was formed early on as a law student working at California Rural Legal Assistance. As a bar leader, she served as a Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) delegate to the ABA House of Delegates for seven years, and for three years she was a member of the ABA’s Commission on Disability Rights.

Ms. Perluss was a special consultant to the ABA Presidential Task Force on Access to Justice (2006), which initiated the ABA’s resolution in support of a civil right to counsel for basic needs cases. She has been a leader in the right to counsel movement and was one of the creators of the National Coalition on the Civil Right to Counsel.

She is a member of NLADA’s Civil Council’s Regulations Committee. As a bar leader, Ms. Perluss served on the WSBA’s Special Committee to Review the Rules of Professional Conduct, chairing the Conflicts Sub-Committee. Her work has led to the adoption of several statewide court rules, including a special conflicts rule enabling statewide hotlines to conduct intakes and provide limited assistance overcoming key structural conflicts barriers to accessing legal aid; established a right to counsel for persons with disabilities in need of reasonable accommodation to access courts; and a statewide indigent fee waiver rule.

While at Evergreen Legal Services, she headed a pilot project that ultimately led to the creation of the statewide Courthouse Facilitator program, an early self-help model that has been institutionalized at courthouses throughout the state. She has served on or chaired several other WSBA and Access to Justice Board committees.

In 2014, she received WSBA’s Public Service Award, and, in 2015, she received the King County Washington Women Lawyers’ Award for Special Contribution to the Judiciary. Ms. Perluss is honored to be the recipient of NLADA’s Charles Dorsey Award.

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2017
Recipient(s) name:

Dennis Groenenboom

Recipient title:
Executive Director
Recipient organization:
Iowa Legal Aid
Des Moines, Iowa
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

Dennis Groenenboom serves as the executive director of Iowa Legal Aid. A 1978 graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law, Dennis has spent his entire professional career with Iowa Legal Aid. He has worked as a staff attorney, senior staff attorney, managing attorney, deputy director, and as the executive director since 1992. Before assuming administrative responsibilities, Dennis’ substantive areas of expertise were in representing individuals with disabilities. He also developed expertise in the area of public benefits and rights of older Iowans.

Dennis understood that the future viability of legal aid programs would be dependent on the development of a broad and diversified funding base. In 1980, federal funding represented more than 90 percent of Iowa Legal Aid’s budget. Largely through Dennis’s efforts and leadership in developing new approaches to fundraising, Iowa Legal Aid’s ratio of federal funding to total funding has dropped to just over 30 percent. He has taught staff and board members the important lesson that to get support from the community you must have a compelling message and not be afraid to make the ask – whether it be for support of a legislator for additional state funding or to a donor for financial support.

Early on Dennis recognized the critical nature of partnerships in building a broader understanding of the importance of civil legal services. Developing collaborative partnerships in order to better address issues faced by low-income Iowans has become an essential element of Iowa Legal Aid’s work. These partnerships have been a basis for numerous initiatives, including Iowa Legal Aid’s Health and Law Project, Foreclosure Project, Parent Representation Project, and Disaster Project. In addition, Iowa Legal Aid partners with 16 United Way agencies to address issues of income, education, and health across the state.

As part of Iowa Legal Aid’s “Justice in the Balance: Low-Income Iowans and the Courts” initiative, Dennis worked with other access to justice partners to get an emeritus practice rule adopted by the Iowa Supreme Court, thereby increasing the volunteer attorney services available to low-income Iowans. Dennis is also a regular speaker at the swearing-in ceremonies for lawyers who are being admitted to the Iowa Bar, emphasizing the importance of pro bono work and encouraging them to participate in Iowa’s Volunteer Lawyers Projects.

The program’s Strategic Plan, unified statewide intake system, and Language Access Policy for Limited English Proficient (LEP) Individuals have all been recognized as models for other programs.

Another example of Dennis’s leadership is the establishment of the Iowa Legal Aid Foundation. The Foundation’s volunteer Board of Directors has worked closely with Dennis and staff to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars through philanthropic giving and is building an endowment to help secure Iowa Legal Aid’s future.

Dennis has served on the National Legal Aid & Defender Association’s (NLADA) Civil Policy Group and Board of Directors and participated as a fellow in the Where Health Meets Justice Fellowship convened by the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership. He has been an active member of the Iowa State Bar Association and has served on the boards of several community and faith-based organizations.

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2015
Recipient(s) name:

LInda K. Rexer

Recipient title:
Executive Director
Recipient organization:
Michigan State Bar Foundation
Lansing, Michigan
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

Linda Rexer has been executive director of the Michigan State Bar Foundation for 30 years. The Foundation provides significant funding and leadership for civil legal aid to the poor. Previously, she was a managing attorney for a regional legal aid program. She has held national and state leadership roles, including as a founding member of the State Bar of Michigan's Access to Justice Task Force and current co-chair of its successor entity and co-chair of the Access Committee of the State Bar’s 21st Century Task Force on the Future of Legal Services.

She was co-chair of the statewide Solutions on Self-Help Task Force, which launched the Michigan Legal Help Program, recently honored with NLADA’s Innovations in Equal Justice Award. She served on NLADA committees and as a member of the MIE board. She was also a member of the ABA Commission on IOLTA and President of the National Association of IOLTA Programs for which she has made many presentations and led numerous committees, including currently chairing a committee working to broaden support for legal aid from other foundations.

She was also a trustee of the National Conference of Bar Foundations, a member of the ABA Task Force to Revise the Civil Legal Aid Standards, a member of LSC’s Performance Criteria Committee, and a member of LSC’s Pro Bono Task Force. She received the State Bar's Michael Frank Award for contributions to the legal profession and has published many articles on access to justice. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Notre Dame.

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2013
Recipient(s) name:

Ramon Arias

Recipient title:
Executive Director
Recipient organization:
Bay Area Legal Aid
Oakland, California
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

Ramón Arias is Executive Director of Bay Area Legal Aid and a leader in the national civil justice community.

He began his legal aid career in 1978 with California Rural Legal Assistance. During his ten years with CRLA, Ramón served as a staff attorney, managing attorney, Director of CRLA's Migrant Farm Worker Project, and as a regional counsel. In 1988, Ramón became the Executive Director of the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, a position he held for the next 12 years.

In 2000, Ramón became the Executive Director of Bay Area Legal Aid, an organization he helped to create by merger of four legal aid programs.  Bay Area Legal Aid is the San Francisco Bay Area’s largest law firm for the poor and is nationally recognized for its innovation, effectiveness, and quality.

Named one of the top 100 attorneys in California twice by the Daily Journal, Ramón has served as Chair of the Board of the National Legal Aid & Defenders Association, member of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid & Indigent Defendants, a member of the ABA Committee on Loan Repayment and Forgiveness, and Chair of the Board of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

Ramón was recently appointed by the President of the Legal Services Corporation to an LSC Advisory Group committed to exploring ways legal aid providers can better demonstrate the effectiveness of the legal assistance they provide. 

Consistent with his national leadership on the need to cultivate a new generation of public interest lawyers, Ramón currently serves on the Board of Equal Justice Works, which operates the largest fellowship program in the United States. 

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2009
Recipient(s) name:

Edgar and the late Jean Camper Cahn

Recipient organization:
Time Banks
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

Prior to the development of the legislation for the War on Poverty in 1964, Edgar and Jean Camper Cahn helped to implement the work of Community Progress Inc., developing the first neighborhood-based law firm in New Haven, CT as part of that program. As part of the War on Poverty, the Cahns conceived, designed, proposed and founded the National Legal Services Corporation, which served as the blueprint for the Legal Services Program. Later, both Cahns helped shape the Legal Services Corporation as consultants to the President’s Commission on Reorganization.

In 1972, through the efforts of the Cahns, Antioch School of Law in Washington, DC, was established as the first clinical law school in the nation broadening access to legal careers and providing free legal services to thousands of District residents. As co-deans of the law school, the Cahns pioneered legal programs for poor residents of the District, and, many years later, when the school fell on hard times, the Cahns returned to Washington to play crucial roles in mobilizing the community and securing support to launch the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law as a successor to the Antioch School of Law.

In 1980, Edgar Cahn developed the strategy of co-production to empower the poor with a tax-exempt currency initially called services credits and later renamed as TimeDollars. The currency equates one hour spent helping others or building community or fighting for justice with one time dollar, which can be used to secure computers, food, or clothes for families. Today, while continuing the work of Time Banking, Edgar Cahn has embarked on a civil rights initiative to address racial disparity by proposing to shift the focus from past to future by formally giving officials a future choice between continuing with present practices that often result in racially disparate impact, with validated, less expensive and replicable alternatives.  

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2007
Recipient(s) name:

Stuart Andrews

Recipient organization:
Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
Columbia , South Carolina
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

Andrews’ choice to work with private firms began as a suggestion from the minister of the church he was representing while a staff attorney at Palmetto Legal Services. The minister suggested he help the poor and create change by working in a private law firm. He accepted the challenge and his new mission became to create opportunities for others. Andrews now leads Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP’s Health Care Group by representing hospitals, health care systems, physicians, and ancillary providers in a wide range of regulatory and litigation matters in Columbia, SC. He has served on numerous statewide task forces responsible for the development of recommendations concerning heath care policy in South Carolina, as well as chairman of numerous organizations and initiatives. Having been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers of America (1995-2008 editions), he also received the South Carolina Bar Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year Award in 2005. Andrews has shown vision, compassion, and leadership in serving the legal needs of the lowincome community throughout his career.