Most Recent Pro Bono Publico Award
PSJD’s 2020-2021 Pro Bono Publico Award Winners: Ellen Bertels & Delaney Hiegert
NALP is proud to announce it has conferred this year’s Pro Bono Publico Award jointly on Ellen Bertels and Delaney Hiegert, recent graduates of the University of Kansas School of Law. We selected Bertels & Hiegert as our 2020-2021 PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award winners for their joint work fostering pro bono opportunities for her classmates at the University of Kansas — to the benefit of their community broadly.
In the words of one of their supervising attorneys:
Ellen and Delaney conceptualized, advocated for, and then operationalized the idea of starting a gender marker and name change legal clinic at KU law. Founding a new legal clinic from the ground up is no small task for established legal clinicians; the fact the Ellen and Delaney exhibited the vision, grit, and dedication to get it done is remarkable, not to mention a feat rarely accomplished by law students. The unmet need for this work became immediately apparent: dozens of potential clients called the clinic within hours of its opening. Moreover, Ellen and Delaney traveled around Kansas to present a CLE and a community presentation about the importance of gender marker and name changes and the legal framework surrounding such changes.