The Pennsylvania Bar Foundation is currently accepting nominations for the 2018 Louis J. Goffman Award.

The Louis J. Goffman Awards program seeks to recognize and honor an individual and an organization whose commitments to pro bono have enhanced the delivery of legal services to Pennsylvania’s poor or disadvantaged, making a critical difference in the lives of those in need of legal representation. The recipients’ donations of time, talent and expertise serve as a model to be emulated by other legal professionals and organizations and since 1989, the Louis J. Goffman Awards have recognized and rewarded these exceptional people and organizations.

The 2018 Louis J. Goffman Awards will be presented in May during the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Annual Meeting scheduled for May 9-11, 2018 at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA. Each recipient is presented with a commemorative plaque and a monetary contribution.

Award Criteria

Any Pennsylvania-based individual or organization involved in the provision of volunteer legal services is eligible. This includes large and small firms, corporate law departments, government attorney offices, county bar associations, law schools and other legal services entities whose members, either collectively or individually, have demonstrated excellence in one or more of the following categories over the past year:

• Dedication to the development and delivery of legal services to the poor through a pro bono program;
• Significant work towards the development of innovative approaches to the delivery of volunteer legal services
• Active participation in a program/project that satisfied a previously unmet or under served legal need of a particular group of Pennsylvanians.
• Successful litigation of a pro bono case(s) that enhanced the delivery of other services to the poor.
• Successful pursuit of legislation that significantly enhanced the provision of legal services to the poor.
• Consideration will also be given to the length or intensity of service and the effort in context to the size of the organization/group.

Selection Process

The nomination deadline is April 2, 2018. No extension will be granted. The Louis J. Goffman Awards Committee of the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation will review the nominations and select the award recipient(s). The award recipients will be notified no later than May 1, 2018. All committee decisions are final and binding.

For more information on the Nomination Process for the Louis J. Goffman Award please visit the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation website at www.pabarfoundation.org/what-we-do/louis-j-goffman-awards/.