Mass. Supreme Judicial Court honors pro bono lawyers, students and firms at Adams Awards

The Supreme Judicial Court standing committee on pro bono legal services recognized attorneys, law students and legal organizations at the 2025 John Adams and John Quincy Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards ceremony. The committee chair, Elana Gelfman, opened the program and welcomed awardees, justices, and attendees.

Gelfman said the awards and the SJC pro bono honor roll are intended to "promote pro bono legal services throughout the Commonwealth" and to encourage law students and new lawyers to develop the habit of volunteering. She noted a 2024 survey of selected state-court case types showing more than 150,000 matters involving litigants without lawyers and described pro bono volunteers as helping to narrow a large justice gap.

Roz Nazdorf, pro bono counsel at Ropes & Gray and a committee member, described the honor roll criteria: law students qualify with at least 50 hours of pro bono service; attorneys qualify for the honor roll at 50 hours and for the high honor roll at 100 hours in the prior calendar year. Nazdorf reported that 1,059 individual attorneys qualified for the SJC pro bono honor roll in 2024, including 508 who completed at least 100 hours and 551 who completed at least 50 hours; collectively these attorneys reported about 80,000 pro bono hours in calendar year 2024. Student participants donated more than 14,000 hours in aggregate.

Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd congratulated the honorees and emphasized the role volunteer lawyers play in making legal rights real for vulnerable populations, saying that volunteers "make the rights promised by the law a reality for some of our most vulnerable populations." The court and committee also recognized several organizations that met organizational criteria for firmwide pro bono programs.

Individual award recipients included Omar Hajadra, recognized for 483 hours of international human-rights pro bono service and leadership with the Ukraine Accountability Project; Deepti Silopan, honored for more than 600 pro bono hours assisting immigrants, survivors of domestic violence, prisoners, and workers and for clinic and amicus work; Madeline Rodriguez of Foley Hoag, honored for nearly 4,500 hours across domestic-violence, immigration, indigent defense, and civil-rights matters; and Nigel Tampton of Skadden, honored for more than 2,600 hours and for his role in a post-conviction effort that led to a 2025 vacatur of a 1985 conviction.

The committee also presented an organizational award to the law firm Proskauer Rose for a sustained partnership with Greater Boston Legal Services on supplemental security income (SSI) appeals for children with disabilities. Presenters described Proskauer—s model: first-year associates receive a pro bono assignment, pro bono hours are credited like billable hours, and the firm maintains full-time pro bono staff. In the children—s disability project, Proskauer attorneys have worked with GBLS staff on SSI appeals and obtained multiple favorable outcomes, including retroactive payments to families.

Speakers at the ceremony urged that individual representation remain a priority while also pressing for systemic reforms. Presenters noted that SSI rules are complex and include asset and income limits set decades ago; they argued that lawyers can both help clients in individual cases and advocate for policy changes to improve access to benefits.

The ceremony concluded with thanks to court staff and volunteers and an invitation to a reception in the conference suite.