The Dick Thornburgh Prize for Legal Service

During Marisa’s first year of Law School, she volunteered as a translator in order to help facilitate communication between those seeking assistance and colleagues at the Immigration Law Clinic. Once enrolled there, she worked extensively, often putting the client’s needs ahead of her own. So when the time came in the Spring of 2016 to submit the asylum application for one of her clients, she spent many nights at the clinic as she sought to balance the need to prepare for my final exams with the need to finish a timely application that was well prepared and researched.

Allison Hall attended the University of Pittsburgh for her bachelor’s degree followed by a dual graduate school degree with Pitt Law and School of Social Work to pursue public interest law.  This dual degree enhanced the technical legal skillset, equally important cultural competence, and interpersonal skills needed for her career serving under-resourced communities and families. 

Congrats to Bethany Fisher, and Hannah Shaffer.  

*Special thanks to Pitt Law for providing the support to fund a second Dick Thornburgh Prize for Legal Service for 2016.

During Law School Joshua Davis worked at Neighborhood Legal Services on landlord-tenant cases.  He has interviewed, advised, and assisted over fifty low-income tenants facing eviction from both private and subsidized housing.  This experience afforded Mr. Davis the opportunity to litigate on behalf of many of those tenants at Magisterial District Courts and in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. 

Brianna Bell has been selected as one of two recipients of the Dick Thornburgh Prize for Legal Service for 2021. 

Brianna received her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 2021 and a Bachelor of Arts, English, and Religious Studies degree from Franklin and Marshall College in 2011.