Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama, will be presented with the American Bar Association’s highest honor, the ABA Medal, at the ABA’s Annual Meeting.
The ABA Medal is awarded only when the Operations and Communications Committee with Board concurrence finds that a lawyer or judge has “rendered conspicuous service to the cause of American Jurisprudence.” Annual presentation is not required.
Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public-interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death-row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Mr. Stevenson has successfully argued several cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and recently won a historic ruling in the Court banning mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger.
“I am very honored to receive the ABA Medal,” Mr. Stevenson said. “I’ve spent my career in jails and prisons, frequently in rural courts with the poor, marginalized and some of our nation’s most vulnerable populations. It is deeply meaningful to me that the ABA would honor work that helps the indigent. I hope it reflects our commitment to the rule of law even on behalf of the ‘least of these.’ As someone who never met a lawyer until I got to law school, I’ve come to appreciate more and more the power of the law to protect the rights of the disadvantaged and lawyers to be agents of justice and understanding.”
The 2018 ABA Annual Meeting will be held on August 2-7 in Chicago.