Gary Bellow Public Service Award
2018 Finalists
STUDENT FINALISTS
Annie Manhardt
Amy Volz
Ross Brockway
2016 Finalists
ALUMNI FINALISTS
Glenn Falk (J.D. 1985)
Glenn Falk’s experience in the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and in Professor Bellow’s clinical courses prepared him well for his career as a legal aid lawyer. For more than three decades, Glenn has served as a staff attorney at New Haven Legal Assistance Association, representing hundreds of indigent clients in civil and criminal matters in state and federal court. As a law student Glenn successfully argued an appeal in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; today he is a leading advocate in the Connecticut Supreme Court, winning new trials for criminal defendants on the basis of faulty jury instructions and the deprivation of the right to counsel, among other constitutional claims. He continues to litigate issues undreamed of when he was in law school, such as whether texting an acquaintance not to give a statement to the police is conduct protected by the First Amendment. Glenn is also Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Law at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he inspires a new generation to think about Fourth Amendment issues involving privacy and national security in the digital age.
Barbara Finamore (J.D. 1980)
Barbara Finamore has dedicated her career to environmental justice, first through her pioneer work in the US on nuclear waste; and second in China, where thanks to her sustained efforts, the air pollution that causes 1.6 million premature deaths a year is finally beginning to drop. As a litigator at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Barbara won a precedent-setting case early in her career forcing the Department of Energy (DOE) to drop its Cold War claim of sovereign immunity from federal and state environmental standards at its nuclear weapon production sites. By halting DOE’s longstanding practice of dumping millions of gallons of solvents, caustics, acids, nitrates, heavy metals and radioactive materials annually into local rivers and groundwater, this case represented a victory for people living near some 30 nuclear weapons sites around the country. Thirty years later, DOE’s toxic waste cleanup program at these sites is still the largest ($5.5 billion/year) environmental cleanup program in the world.Barbara has also played a pathbreaking role in the global environmental movement, using law and policy to protect the global climate and achieve meaningful improvements in human health for millions of people, particularly the poor and vulnerable. In 1995, Barbara founded NRDC’s China Program, the first international NGO clean energy program in China. Twenty years on, NRDC’s 40 staff members in Beijing now work to cap China’s coal consumption, accelerate renewable energy and energy efficiency, achieve low-carbon urbanization, and protect human and environmental health. Barbara’s work has resulted in significant successes, the most recent of which is the 2014 enactment of groundbreaking amendments to China’s Environmental Protection Law that allow Chinese NGOs to bring environmental public interest litigation against polluters. Barbara and her team have trained thousands of Chinese environmental NGOs, lawyers, judges, government officials, journalists, students and community representatives on environmental law and governance, pollution control, energy policy, public participation, open information and public interest litigation. Throughout her career, Barbara has also mentored and inspired new generations to use the law as a powerful tool for environmental justice.
STUDENT FINALIST
Elizabeth Anne Reese (J.D. 2016)
Elizabeth A. Reese, Yunpovi (Willow Flower) is from Nambe Pueblo, a small Indian reservation just north of Santa Fe, NM. At Nambe, Liz is an active member of the Pueblo’s traditional religious community, volunteers for the tribe’s educational department, and served on a non-profit exploratory committee. Prior to law school, Liz worked on Indian policy for U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman and was hired by the Yale College Dean’s Office to consult on the development of Yale’s Native American community. Liz then received her MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History from the University of Cambridge where she studied the relationship between American Indian political empowerment and Christian theology. At HLS, Liz served as co-President of the Native American Law Students Association, and has planned HLS’s annual Freedom Seder on behalf of the Black Law Students Association three years running. As part of the Native Amicus Briefing project, Liz helped author a federal district court brief arguing for tribal fishing rights. Liz spent her summers at the Appellate Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and on the Judiciary Committee Staff for Senator Richard Blumenthal, where she worked on bills concerning immigration, gun regulation, domestic violence, and human trafficking. Next year, Liz will be clerking for Chief Judge Richard Roberts in Washington, D.C.. Liz checks in with her Grandma regularly to make sure that what she is doing is important enough for the good of Native people that she can justify living so far away from home.
LLM/SJD FINALISTS
János Fiala (LLM 2016)
During law school, János worked for a human rights NGO on Slovakia’s first anti-discrimination law. In 2004, he investigated the use of cage beds and other restraints in closed institutions for persons with disabilities in Slovakia for a BBC undercover investigation. The things he saw at those institutions prompted him to become a full-time advocate for justice for persons with disabilities. He joined the Mental Disability Advocacy Center, became its first legal officer, and developed a strategy on how to use international human rights law to challenge the widespread abuses against persons with disabilities in Europe and beyond. János has been practicing as a human rights attorney for more than a decade now, representing victims of human rights abuses in monitoring proceedings and litigation before the highest courts in several European countries and international bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He has achieved some landmark victories challenging disenfranchisement, torture, guardianship, exclusion from education, institutionalization and involuntary treatment of persons with disabilities. He is currently writing his SJD dissertation about how persons with intellectual disabilities could make legally valid decisions. After graduation, Janos is planning to work on litigation and law reform on behalf of persons with disabilities, challenging guardianship around the world and developing alternatives based on supported decision-making.
Doaa Abu Elyounes (LLM 2016)
Doaa’s career path was affected significantly by her personal story. Doaa was born with a sight problem (blindness) to an Arab family in Haifa, Israel and she is making sure that her disability will not stop her from fulfilling her dreams. Choosing public service career path embodied Doaa’s hope to overcome all barriers and express her gratitude to the supportive surrounded society that always helped her. Doaa’s journey in the legal field started at the age of 18 when she chose to do national service in the Legal Aid Office, in the Israeli Ministry of Justice and help Arab from East Jerusalem to Access their legal rights. In law school in Israel, Doaa worked as a student attorney in a clinic for legal feminism, where I took part in projects aiming at preventing the murder of Arab women on the grounds of the so-called “family honor”, and as a student attorney in a clinic for prisoners’ rights, where she assisted prisoners with claims and petitions to the High Courts of Justice. Upon completing her studies Doaa worked as a law clerk at the supreme court of Israel, under the supervision of honorable Justice Nil Hendel. Her last job before coming to HLS was an adviser to the Director General of the Ministry of Justice, Miss. Emi Palmor, a job that encourage her to pursue a public service career in the future due to the lateral vision she exposed to, about the strategic management of the Ministry and its efforts to work for the people and improve its services.
At HLS Doaa is focusing on the intersection of law, technology and society, believing that in these days technology can play a major role in promoting equality and improve access to rights.
2015
ALUMNI
- Chiraag Bains
- Richard Weishaupt
STUDENTS
- Greg Baltz
- Seth Packrone
2014
ALUMNI
- David Singleton
- Chloe Cockburn
- Mercedes Montagnes
STUDENTS
- Jessica Frisina
- Lerae Kroon
- Matt Nickell
- Jeanne Segil
2013
ALUMNI
- Nisha Agarwal
- Laurel Firestone
- Sarah Walzer
STUDENTS
- Lara Berlin
- Stephanie Davidson
- Crystal Redd
2010
ALUMNI
- Cori Crider
- Jim Freeman
STUDENTS
- Mike Admirand
- Julia Hildreth
- Dominique Winters
2008
ALUMNI
- Jeff Purcell ’84
- Dan Williams ’86
- Jennifer “JJ” Rosenbaum ’02
STUDENTS
- Libby Fischer ’08
- Deborah Popowski ’08
- Lam Ho ’08
2007
ALUMNI
- Ariel Dulitzky ’99
- Katherine Locker ’98
- Dan Williams ’86
STUDENTS
- Jessica Brand ’06
- Mary Anne Franks ’06
- Rebecca Hamilton ’06
2003
ALUMNI
- Jessica Budnitz
- Miriam Gohara
- Julia Harrington
- Mary Beth Musumeci
- Brad Sears
STUDENTS
- Leah Barron
- Faisal Chaudhry
- Daniel Gluck
- Jaskaran Kaur
- Gary Slossberg