September 10, 2021
Time to Talk Town Hall Wins ABA Award
Compiled by Chris Fortier from Virginia State Bar Reports
The Time to Talk Town Hall Series from 2020 won a major national award.
Through a submission for the ABA Young Lawyers Division Awards of Achievement through our partners, the Young Lawyers Conference (YLC), the Series won the 2021 Award of Achievement for Diversity for the Time to Talk Townhall Web Series, which was a series of three town hall style virtual forums for discussing issues of equality, race and ethnicity in the wake of the nationwide protests surrounding the deaths of George Floyd and other persons of color. These issues were discussed through the lens of concrete legal frameworks and concepts.
The town halls were a joint project and covered policing, free speech, statue removal, protests, and addressing implicit bias. The web series was distributed after recording through the two conferences’ newsletters, Docket Call and Invictus.
Dave Masterman, chair of the Diversity Conference noted, “Programs like this one have added importance in difficult times, and goodness knows that the last few years have been difficult. This Award is both a wonderful recognition of the YLC’s and the Diversity Conference’s hard work on these issues and an inspiration for all of us to keep this dialogue open.”
The ABA Young Lawyers Division Awards of Achievement recognizes projects and programs put on by young lawyer groups from around the country. One major criterion is collaboration with other bar organizations to put on quality programming. The Diversity Conference and the Young Lawyers Conference have a strong partnership supporting one another to put on exceptional programs such as the award winning Hill Tucker Institute and the Time to Talk Town Halls.