Two legal aid staff members and one law student are being honored for their efforts in providing legal services to the disadvantaged. The 2010 Bernard P. Becker Awards for Legal Services Staff and Volunteer Law Students will be presented by the Minnesota State Bar Association at its April 29 Assembly meeting. The Becker Awards are presented each year for work that exemplifies the dedication and commitment to helping poor people that marked the career of the late Bernard Becker, a renowned legal aid attorney, law professor, and magistrate judge. Legal Services Staff Award winners each receive $1,000; the Volunteer Law Student Award winner will receive $350.

The 2010 Legal Services Staff Awards will be presented to:
 

* Judy A. Hollie, legal secretary, Central Minnesota Legal Services (CMLS). Hollie began her career as a legal secretary 33 years ago as a part-time secretary with the Southside Office of the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis. She joined CMLS in 1996. While her work is behind the scenes, she impacts most of the legal work done in the Minneapolis office. Among her other “duties” is helping to orient and train new staff beginning their career at CMLS.
 

* Ron Elwood, staff attorney, Legal Services Advocacy Project (Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance). In 1978, Elwood began his professional career at the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs working on consumer problems. He moved to Minnesota in 1996. Before joining Legal Aid in 1998, he served as a consultant on energy policy for the Minnesota Legislature and a planner for Ramsey County Human Services. Elwood currently advocates on behalf of low-income Minnesotans at the legislature and before administrative agencies regarding consumer, landlord-tenant and housing, energy and telecommunications, tax, and family law. He has also spearheaded landmark legislation that not only has helped hundreds of thousands of Minnesota consumers, but has served as national models affecting millions.

In addition to his duties at Legal Aid, Elwood was appointed in 2001 by Gov. Ventura to the board of the Minnesota Joint Underwriting Association and served as a citizen member from 2001-09. He is also a board member of the National Low Income Energy Consortium and the Energy Cents Coalition.

The Volunteer Law Student Award will be presented to Sanjee Weliwitigoda, a student at William Mitchell College of Law and volunteer at Fredrikson & Byron and the Minnesota Justice Foundation (MJF).

Laura Danielson, head of the Immigration Department and one of Weliwitigoda’s supervisors at Fredrikson & Bryron, says, “Sanjee has hit the ground running in a way that I have never seen before in all the years that we have used the MJF program. He has a true passion for the subject of immigration law but beyond that, his capacity for taking on projects is remarkable.”
Weliwitigoda has taken the lead on a number of projects including: filing and follow-up on three complaints to the Board of Professional Responsibility on behalf of immigrants who were sorely treated by past legal counsel; and writing a brief to the Board of Immigration Appeals on the denial of a political asylum case for an indigenous individual from Mexico. He was recently chosen as the Executive Editor of the William Mitchell Law Review.