Denison Ray Award (biennial)

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The "Denny" award honors persons who have provided at least five years of service to the legal services community in staff, client or volunteer capacities. Dennison Ray, who dedicated his professional life to equal justice for the poor, is the former director of the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, Legal Services of North Carolina, and other programs.

Denison Ray winners listing

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2014
Recipient(s) name:

Sylvia Bosen

Recipient title:
Paralegal
Recipient organization:
Utah Legal Services
Salt Lake City, Utah
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

Sylvia joined Utah Legal Services in 1986 and has held several positions at Utah Legal Services. She is currently the paralegal for the pro bono unit. Part of her tasks include recruiting volunteer attorneys statewide and maintaining a large caseload that cannot be handled in-house. She provides a wide range of support for the clients and pro bono attorneys. When she started this position, a few pro bono cases were placed per month, but the program has blossomed and they are placing more than 30 cases per month. She also works with another in-house attorney and follows up with clients in our Senior Citizen division. She is bilingual, which is very helpful in assisting our Spanish-speaking clients.

Sylvia takes pride in working with our clients and maintains a good relationship with clients and our pro- bono attorneys. She has a great passion for her work and enjoys helping people who cannot afford legal assistance.

She is married, has 3 children and 5 grandchildren, and in her free time enjoys reading, fishing, and knitting.

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2012
Recipient(s) name:

Gerry Singsen

Recipient title:
Consultant
Recipient organization:
Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission
Watertown, Massachusetts
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

NLADA is pleased to award the Denison Ray Award to Gerry Singsen. Nominated by no less than 40 leaders from the civil legal services community, Singsen is an inspirational figure to his colleagues and friends and true champion of equal justice.

Singsen began his legal services career as a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow in 1968, and immediately accomplished astounding results. During four years as a staff attorney and unit director at the Legal Aid Society of Westchester county, he litigated New York’s welfare residency case to affirmation by the U.S. Supreme court, won a voting rights case and created a county-wide Community Development effort. In the following six years Singsen served as Assistant General Counsel for New York City’s Community Action for Legal Services, a program with more than 140 attorneys, where he established management and performance systems and gained national visibility for labor relations in legal services.

In 1975, Singsen spent three months as a member of Lou Oberdorfer’s Transition Team that closed the OEO Legal Services Program and brought the Legal Services Corporation into existence. In 1978, Gerry returned to LSC as a full-time consultant on funding and policy and from 1979 to 1982 served as LSC’s Vice President for Finance and Management under LSC President Dan Bradley. In this role, Gerry managed the “ABC” Committee that led LSC’s management of the program issues involved in the 1981 fight for the survival of LSC.

On the front lines of many of the difficult moments in legal aid history, he used his vision, analysis and discipline to find new solutions and minimize some of the harm of political pendulum shifts. In 1975, as a leading member in the Project Advisory Group’s famous Funding Criteria Committee, Gerry emerged as a leading analyst on such issues as expansion, equalization, state support, and migrant and Native American funding. Gerry’s writing of PAG’s 1993 “Equal Justice for People in Poverty,” which called for national funding of full representation with $3.6 billion. PAG adopted the paper after a ringing call by Denny Ray.

Gerry Singsen is a leader, a visionary, a strategist, a mentor, and a doer, who values excellence and integrity, collaboration and change in service to our country’s most marginalized and disadvantaged client populations. He has provided thoughtful advice, training and assistance to thousands of leaders in our community over years of dedicated service. He has been on the front lines of significant developments in legal aid funding and policy since the early days of our work. We can think of no better recipient of this year’s Denison Ray award, than Gerry, who knew and worked closely with Denny, and who, just as Denny was, is a treasured friend and mentor to so many in our community over decades.

Frequency:
Biennial
Year:
2008
Recipient(s) name:

Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr.

Recipient title:
Executive Director
Recipient organization:
Legal Aid Bureau of Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland
Where presented :
NLADA Annual Conference
Reason for selection of recipient(s):

The 2008 Denison Ray Award recipient is Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr. This award, given biennially, honors an individual who has provided exceptional service to the legal aid community as a staff member, client board member or volunteer of a provider program. The “Denny” is named for a career legal aid activist who served as executive director of legal services programs in Missouri, Maine, North Carolina and New York and was a long-time leader of the Project Advisory Group.

Joseph, who has served as the executive director of the Legal Aid Bureau of Maryland since 1996, has had a legendary career in the legal aid field. It was his personal struggles during the civil rights era that led him toward his career in legal aid. While a student, he became the national director for the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, which gave him national prominence and a broader understanding of the hurdles the equal justice movement faced.

His career leading up to his current position in Maryland started in 1974, when he began working as a staff attorney and administrator at North Mississippi Rural Legal Services (NMRLS) in Oxford, where he was promoted to executive director in 1975. Joseph remained with NMRLS until 1982, when he accepted a position with Legal Services for New York City, and became director of the legal support unit. During his tenure at the Legal Aid Bureau of Maryland, he has increased the budget from $8 million to $22 million annually, allowing him to reinvigorate their programs, add new goals and serve additional clients. Joseph has also served in the forefront in the movement to create a national civil Gideon mandate, which would make it mandatory for legal aid to be provided to individuals whose basic quality of life is threatened.

“Wilhelm is a visionary,” said Lillian Johnson, executive director of Community Legal Services in Arizona, in her letter of support for Joseph’s nomination. “He advocated for recognition of a ‘civil right to counsel in civil matters’ many years before the ABA and other national groups adopted it. He has been a leader in his support for recruitment and retention of diverse and well-trained legal aid advocates for the delivery of high quality legal services to the poor.”

For his tireless dedication and outstanding achievements in the struggle to ensure justice for all, we honor William H. Joseph, Jr.