The Boston Bar Association will present Choate Hall & Stewart with the Thurgood Marshall Award at the 2010 Annual Meeting in recognition of their "Education Law Project." The "Education Law Project" is a pro bono initiative where Choate, in collaboration with the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, Professor Charles Ogletree and the Center for Law and Education, is working to divert children from the "school to prison pipeline" by representing students who have been subject to zero tolerance policies.
Choate began developing the program in 2008 and started representing students in 2009. In that relatively short time, they have represented over 20 students through the Education Law Project. Last year, 25 Choate attorneys (not including summer associates) participated in the program, and the firm dedicated more than 2,000 hours to this work. The project encompasses more than 20 percent of their total pro bono hours as a firm.
The Thurgood Marshall Award, established in 1991, seeks to recognize private attorneys in greater Boston for their extraordinary efforts to enhance the human dignity of others through improving, developing, or delivering civil or criminal legal services to low-income clients in Massachusetts.