On May 1, Katherine S. Higgins '09 was honored in Albany, NY by the New York State Bar Association, which gave her the 2008 President's Law Student Pro Bono Service Award. She was the only law student in the state to be recognized. Ms. Higgins was commended for her 2007 pro bono work with Neighborhood Legal Services, the Ithaca office of Legal Assistance of Western New York (LAWNY), where she helped former inmates with re-entry issues and low-income clients with divorce proceedings. But that was just a stop in a career which began with working for Human Rights Watch and continues with criminal defense work for clients of the Legal Aid Society in New York, NY in summer 2008.

"Katie is the epitome of what we look for when hiring students," says Tahira Bland of LAWNY. "She maintains a high standard of professionalism, is someone with great compassion for the needs of our clients, and is genuinely interested in pursuing a career with a public interest organization."

"In her admissions application, Katie expressed her desire to dedicate her efforts to social justice and she has not wavered from that path," says Anne Lukingbeal, Associate Dean and Dean of Students. "She bypassed numerous opportunities to interview with large private law firms for high paying summer associate positions and instead, has chosen to spend her summer representing indigent criminal defendants. I am confident that Katie has a promising public interest career path ahead of her."

-Cornell University Law School News Story, May 7, 2008

-Link: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/newsstory.cfm?pageid=104390