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Mass. Supreme Judicial Court honors pro bono lawyers, students and firms at Adams Awards
Summary
The SJC standing committee on pro bono legal services presented the 2025 John Adams and John Quincy Adams Pro Bono Publico awards, recognizing individual attorneys, law students, and organizations for volunteer legal work across Massachusetts and reporting 1,059 attorneys on the 2024 honor roll and roughly 80,000 collective pro bono hours.
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…
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