Todd Lantz ’09 received the 2009 Law Student Ethics Award from the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Northeast Chapter in April.
One of 11 students honored from participating local law schools, Lantz was recognized for demonstrating an early commitment to ethics through his work in a clinical program.
Lantz was nominated by his clinical instructor Julie McCormack for his work with HLS’s Health and Disability Clinic. In her nomination, McCormack described Lantz’s “extraordinary compassion and maturity” representing clients and noted the quality and quantity of his work. “Although he could only sign up for 10 hours a week, he handled 13 disability cases and led a team of students in writing a Federal District Court brief—a caseload substantially larger than that of students with twice as many hours,” she wrote.
Lantz said he was honored to receive the award and to be nominated by McCormack. “Through her selfless guidance and her model of relentless compassion toward clients, Julie enables and empowers all of the students in the disability clinical to change lives,” he said.
Lantz received the award, which includes a $1,000 scholarship, at a ceremony on April 16 at the Union Club in Boston. In a keynote address, the Hon. Sandra L. Lynch, chief justice, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, spoke about the importance and centrality of honesty in the legal profession and in society, and stressed how both honesty and ethics work together in the practice of law.
The Northeast Chapter created the awards program to “recognize and encourage the ethical practice of law at the earliest stages of a young lawyer’s professional career,” and to demonstrate that “the legal community values lawyers who are guided by ethical principles.”
The event was attended by many prominent judges of the state and federal trial and appellate courts in Massachusetts, as well as deans and faculty from the participating schools, presidents of local bar associations, general counsel from local companies, and managing and senior partners from law firms.