Awards

Trial Lawyer of The Year Award

Trial lawyers have a special commitment to justice. Their advocacy skills breathe life into the rights of individuals and groups that have suffered injustice and harmful abuses.

Every year, trial lawyers provide millions of people with the means to obtain justice. In the majority of these cases, the client is an individual who has been damaged in some way - physically, mentally, emotionally, monetarily - by the wrongful conduct of a business or corporation.

These David-and-Goliath battles for legal justice usually pit the enormous financial resources of the bureaucratic or business defendant against the meager resources of the injured plaintiff. Ironically, plaintiffs’ attorneys are not generally paid unless they win.

However, many trial lawyers take great risk and overcome incredible odds to advance the common law, to make new law, and to win justice for their clients and for the common good of the public.

Read our nominations guidelines for the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.

Click here to read the news release for last year's winners and finalists in the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.

Hogan/Smoger Access to Justice Law Essay Contest

This contest offers law students an opportunity to receive reward and recognition for expounding on whether and how the courts can be used to obtain justice.

For 40 years, the competition was known as the ROSCOE HOGAN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW ESSAY CONTEST, providing law students the opportunity to investigate and offer solutions to the multitude of injustices inflicted on the environment. The contest was established in 1970 by the the late Roscoe B. Hogan of Birmingham, Alabama, a prominent environmental lawyer. With additional support from noted attorney Gerson Smoger, the contest was renamed and expanded beginning with the 2011 competition.

The author of the winning essay will win $5,000 and recognition in the Public Justice newsletter.

Click here to read the contest rules and guidelines.