CBJ - November 2010 #02. Justice Laurie Zelon honored with Benjamin Aranda Award.

California Bar Journal

2010.

CBJ - November 2010 #02.

Justice Laurie Zelon honored with Benjamin Aranda Award

The California LawyerNovember 2010Justice Laurie Zelon honored with Benjamin Aranda AwardAs a lawyer, Justice Laurie Zelon worked for major law firms and represented clients who could well afford her services. But through all those law firm years as well as her time as a Harvard law student and more recently as a judge and justice, she never lost sight of the fact that many people who need legal services don't have the money to pay for them. It wasn't enough for her to simply lament their lack of access; she took it upon herself to be their champion.

For her work opening the courts to people who might never have had representation or known how to make their way through the justice system, Zelon, 57, is the recipient of the 2010 Benjamin Aranda Access to Justice Award. The award, named for the founding chair of the Judicial Council's Access and Fairness Advisory Committee, honors a trial judge or an appellate justice whose activities demonstrate a long-term commitment to improving access to justice. Sponsored jointly by the State Bar, California Commission on Access to Justice, Judicial Council and California Judges Association, the award will be presented at the Judicial Council's December meeting.

"I'm blown away by it," Zelon said of receiving the award. "It's an enormous honor and the honor is even more so because it comes from the groups who are both my peers professionally and who have been working incredibly hard in this area of providing access. To be recognized by people who walk the walk every day makes it so much more of a meaningful award."

The justice, whose legal career has included stints at Beardsley, Hufstedler and Kemble, Hufstedler, Kaus and Ettinger and Morrison and Foerster, has served on many committees and commissions devoted to making the justice system more accessible. The group for which she has done some of her most longstanding work is the Commission on Access to Justice, a collaborative effort of the State Bar, Judicial Council and other California agencies and professionals, which she helped form and on which she served as the first chair.

"We've made some really significant progress," she said of the commission, which was created in 1997. She pointed to increased funds for legal...