 Whether you're ready or not, it's great to have you all here. We are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year and in our 25th anniversary year I could not be more proud to be able to say this, welcome to the largest fundraising event in the history of Roger Williams University School of Law. There are almost 500 people in this room tonight to celebrate, 300 of whom continue to speak, but I love the noise. Thank you so much for your support. Speaking of support, I have other good news to share with you. Two years ago at this event we announced that after years and years of annual fundraising to support the pro bono collaborative, we were embarking on a campaign sparked by a challenge gift by Mark Mandel to raise half a million dollars to establish an endowment for the PBC and to be sure it was funded in perpetuity and with the help of many of you in this room I am proud to tell you that we did it. We have raised thank you, thank you so much to all of you who made that possible. I want to give special thanks again to Mark Mandel and to Mandel Bo-Claire and Mandel for believing in this effort and for providing a catalyst for our success. And you cannot talk about the success of the PBC without talking about the remarkable work of Eliza Vorenberg and Eliza, stand up, the PBC has had one director and you are looking at her. So congratulations, Eliza. So we have much to celebrate tonight. I want to thank and recognize our sponsors for making this celebration possible and for helping us shine a light tonight on the programs that connect our students to individuals and communities in need. And I just want to tell you a couple things about why these programs are so important to us and why I think we have been able to gather this community to support them. They are a manifestation first of our belief that theory and practice and classroom work and experiential work are not alternatives. They are a complementary part of a unitary whole and that's the program that we have been trying to deliver to our students to prepare them for their life after law school. And secondly, these programs are part of our core mission. We have always believed in educating lawyers who are aware of their obligation and the privilege to provide service to their community. It's an institutional commitment as well. We frankly feel that as an institution it is our obligation to serve and help to improve the communities of which we are a part and these programs support those communities and change lives. So thank you for your support of this vision of legal education which was so aptly described by the former president of Roger Williams University, Donald Farish as engaged teaching and learning in service of society. That's what we do and that's what you support and thank you. So tonight we're going to tell you the story of that engagement through a slide show that's going to be rotating throughout the evening through the students at each of your tables. There are 150 law students here this evening. Thanks to those of you who sponsored them. You will forgive them if they're sticking food into their purses and backpacks and things. But and we'll also celebrate tonight our three champions for justice. So before dinner begins, please welcome to the stage here Andy Horwitz who is our assistant dean for experiential education. He also directs our criminal defense clinic, Laurie Baron, director of the Feinstein Center for pro bono and experiential Ed, Debbie Gonzalez who is the director of our immigration clinic and Susie Harrington Steppen where is Susie, the associate director of pro bono programs. So we're here tonight not only to celebrate our amazing champions for justice but also to support the many public interest programs at RWU law. Just to get a visual sense of the breadth and depth and impact of these programs, we're going to ask for your help. Each summer we fund about 25 students so that they can work at unpaid public interest internships. So if you are in the room and you've ever received one of our summer stipends either as an alum or a student or you intend to apply for one this summer, please stand up and remain standing. We presently operate three legal clinics that provide free legal service for indigent clients and we have a broad array of public interest externship programs. Please stand up if you have ever participated in a clinic or externship at Roger Williams University School of Law. Please stand if you have ever supervised our students in an externship and remain standing and please stand if you were ever in a clinic or an externship at another law school and please remain standing. Those summer stipend recipients need to keep standing, get back up. It's all part of a plan. We are so proud to tell you that every single student at Roger Williams Law School provides at least 50 hours of pro bono legal service and over half of our students complete 100 hours or more. Our students complete their pro bono primarily through pro bono collaborative projects or alternative spring break and other public interest internships. Please stand up and remain standing if you have participated in a pro bono collaborative project, if you are a pro bono collaborative attorney, if you have participated in alternative spring break or supervised our students through alternative spring break or if you are a PBC partnering attorney and remain standing. I have to tell you that standing up here and watching all of you guys standing is awesome but I think there's some clinic students that might have sat down. So if you are in a clinic or an externship please stand up. I want to make sure everybody is standing so we could get a good view of everybody who has made an impact in the work that we do here at the law school. So please do stand up and let's give yourselves another round of applause. Now you can sit. Now it's okay to sit down. But I do want to ask you for one more thing because our purpose here today is not only to showcase all of the fabulous work that we do and to really congratulate our champions and justice here today which I congratulate every single one of you but it's also to raise funds. So I want to ask you all to pull out your cell phones so that we could start a little game. And this is going to be really easy. You all have instructions on your table. This is going to be quick. We know you're hungry but we're also really, really excited to share some of the great programming we're doing. So take out your phones. All you have to do is a simple text. You're going to text the word verdict to the number 41444. The word verdict can be in caps or it doesn't really matter. So you're not going to make a mistake. So everyone pull out your phone. It's 41444. You're going to text the word verdict, space, the amount that you'd love to donate tonight and then space, your name or a message of support. And to help you sort of get in the mood we want to explain to you where your money is going. We have incredible pro bono and public interest programming and these students are going to tell you about it. If you have any questions people are walking around the room and they can help you with your phone. Okay, but we really need you to listen. So shh. Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Sebastian Voight. Thank you all for attending tonight and for your continued generosity. I'm a 30 year law student and I had the privilege of participating in alternative spring break twice. First with the Brooklyn Defender's Office and again with the Colorado State Public Defender's Office. Those two experiences form the foundation of my career path and I'm glad to announce that I'll be joining the New Jersey Public Defender's Office as a result of your continued support and charity. Thank you so much. Thank you Sebastian. So last week 88 law students applied to participate in this year's alternative spring break program and as many of you know those of you who are in law school it can be really hard to dedicate a week when you should be taking a break to go on one of these amazing service projects. These are all legal services projects. So 88 students want to do alternative spring break program and your donations are supporting that. So thank you. My name is Zoe. I'm a second year student here and last year I got to participate in the street law program through the Pro Bono Collaborative. It was a really wonderful opportunity to give back to the community a little bit. I got to go into an eighth grade classroom in Providence and teach kids about their rights and a little bit about different areas of criminal law. It was a super rewarding experience. The kids were so energized and wonderful and curious and it was really cool too because you got to teach the kids about something that they wouldn't necessarily have learned about in a normal eighth grade classroom. So it was a wonderful experience and I'm so grateful that I got to do that all thanks to the Pro Bono Collaborative. So thank you. We're doing such a great job. So $6,000. Thank you very much. This money is going towards the amazing work of the Pro Bono Collaborative. Right now we have about 15 different community projects. The street law project, our projects in the prison, our special education law project. So thank you for supporting that. Good evening. My name is Christine and I am a third year student. I am participating in the immigration law clinic for my second semester. I'm here to thank you tonight. Thank you on behalf of myself, other students and a particular client. My experience in the immigration law clinic, I've had an opportunity to represent an eight-year-old little girl from Guatemala who is separated from her mother at the southern border. I cannot tell you how heart-wrenching it is to listen to this girl's story, to listen to everything that she's gone through. I'm here to thank you on behalf of myself and this little girl because without your support, she likely would have been facing this daunting process alone. So thank you. Thank you, Christine, for being there for her. I happened to be in court with Christine that day when that seven-year-old had to walk into the well in the courtroom at the immigration court and face a judge in a black robe sitting on a tall bench and the scare look of that child that day and without you and without the help of all of you tonight, we wouldn't have been able to do that. I just want to point out that our goal is $10,000 and I can't believe we're almost there. This is awesome. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. All right. I'm a second-year law student and because of donors like you, I was able to receive a summer stipend to undertake an internship at Still She Rises, a project of Bronx Defenders in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I learned so much from the talented public defenders, family defense attorneys, social workers, and client advocates fighting on the front lines to prevent the continued mass incarceration of women in the United States and to thwart the exponential growth of the new Jane Crow, where low-income women of color are experiencing child removal and termination of parental rights in alarming numbers. Your support allows public interest students like me to learn from the brilliant zealous advocates all around the country at the front line of these issues. Please keep giving. We need you and we thank you. I'm supposed to say something else, but all I want to say is thank you, thank you, thank you, because we just reached our part. My name is Makayla Bland and I'm a third-year student here. Because of the public interest externship program, I have been able to have the opportunity to work at the Rhode Island Center for Justice since the fall of 2018. During my time there, I've helped clients and represented them who are facing eviction. I've been able to work with community partnerships and provide a walk-in clinic for individuals to come in and talk about their landlord-tenant disputes. And we filed a federal lawsuit asserting that Rhode Island public school students had the constitutional right to an education. So because of you, you have impacted not only me but possibly thousands of other students. So thank you. Makayla, that is such an awesome story. Thank you so much for all the work that you're doing and thanks to all of you for all the pleasures you've made tonight. We'll be able to keep the summer stipend program, externships going, the clinic work going, the PBC work going. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Braxton Medlin and I'm a third-year law student and the current SBA president of Roger Williams University School of Law. I have had the amazing opportunity to spend some of my time doing all of the things that these wonderful students have done. I have been to Colorado, I have been to North Carolina and I have also been to Delaware doing federal defender work because of ASB. And I really just appreciate all of your donations. I appreciate the fact that I am able to be in the clinic with Andy Horowitz here doing public defense work because I will be a public defender come August. So thank you so much for almost $11,000. You guys are all amazing. Thank you and thank you for your donations. We did it. Thank you all very much. Enjoy dinner. It's champion's time. Thank you, everyone, for your attention. So as was made clear when people were asked to stand earlier this evening, everyone here tonight is very special. But I want to welcome or give a special welcome to a couple of people who are longtime supporters of our community and are joining us this evening. So here we go. Judge McConnell, great to have you here. Judge Stern, great to have you here. Arlene Violet still in the house? Where is she? No, she's not in the house. Judge Clifton, great to have you here. I saw Judge Sullivan a moment ago, member of our board, great person, doesn't want to stand up. Yeah, yeah. Judge McGurl, welcome. Judge Vogel is here. There are others. My apologies if I missed you. I do want to give a special shout out to Karen Smolar and Tasha Perdue Silas. Where is she? So we can talk about this in more detail later. But these are our new partners from the National Criminal Defense College. And their Summer Trial Institute will be in Bristol this summer. And there are several former champions here this evening. And thank you for joining us. Maya Farish is here. Maya, we're so pleased that you could be here this evening. I know I speak not just for myself when I say that Don's presence can be felt here this evening because of his unwavering support for the law school and his own personal advocacy and institutional advocacy for social justice. So it's great to have you here. Our new president, our interim president, our current president, Andy Workman is here with his wife, Mary Beth. She is. Thanks for being here. Thank you for your support. So now I'm going to bring Lori. I got good news. I'm bringing Lori Baron back to the podium to present this year's Alumni Champion Award. Lori. So this award is going to Diana DeGroof. And if she wants to come join me on the stage, that would be so cool. Oh, here she comes. Diana DeGroof was literally the first student I met at Roger Williams Law School. In the fall of 2000, back at the turn of the century, that was a joke. Back at the turn of the century, I had a part-time job running a pro bono project for women incarcerated at the ACI with the help of Roger Williams Law students. I remember walking into Roger Williams to meet the students, a bit apprehensive because it was all brand new. And there was a first semester law student in October, still smiling, energetic, and enthusiastic. And she was named Diana DeGroof. And she was ready to get to work. I subsequently came to work at the law school a few months later. And I soon realized that the public interest law students at Roger Williams were amazing and hungry to make real change in the world. And Diana was the leader of that pack. As a brand new Rhode Islander at the law school, I quickly realized that Diana was the key to all things public interest. I was supposed to be running the public interest programs, but I literally knew nothing. Fortunately, Diana knew a lot. Diana found an amazing place in Fall River to volunteer one summer called ILEAP, Catholic Social Services. And we've been sending students there ever since. Diana was our first student to ever receive the Mass Bar Foundation Summer Fellowship, which she found on her own. And she received that fellowship to spend a summer working for the organization, formerly known as, not Prince, Legal Services for the Cape and Islands. Diana was the chair of our Association for Public Interest Law. And at some point during law school, Diana started to volunteer at Rhode Island Legal Services. And she refused to leave until they hired her. This lighting is really wild. She came to law school to be a public interest lawyer, and she is never strayed from that path. Diana has been a zealous advocate for low income clients for the past 15 years at Rhode Island Legal Services. And she's worked in many different areas, including child welfare and family law, housing, disability, and public benefits. Bob Sable, her supervisor in the Newport office, described Diana as follows. She's always ready to do her best. She's ready to learn. She's ready and willing to take on any case there's literally nothing that she will balk at. She's someone who truly likes and respects each and every client. She is always upbeat, funny, and easy laugh, and in good humor, well, nearly always, he said. And she's always enthusiastic and always outraged at the injustices she sees. Janet Gilligan, the deputy director of Rhode Island Legal Services, described Diana this way. She is one of the most dedicated, hardworking lawyers I've ever seen. When she takes a case, she takes it with her whole heart, she takes it all the way, and she doesn't stop until the end. Janet described a physical manifestation of Diana's body and face that literally changed when she has witnessed something outrageous happen to one of her clients. Recently, Diana was representing a mother whose child had been removed. Diana was convinced that this mother and child belonged together. She lost in the trial court, and she took this case to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, where she got the finding vacated and reunited this mother and daughter. As the family court practitioners in the room know, this is a rare result. Diana is so passionate about her work that legend has it that in the late summer months of, I believe, her pregnancy with Toby, who was born in August, her feet had swollen so much that it pained her to wear her shoes. And she literally walked barefoot from her office on Pine Street to the Gary He complex, carrying her files in one arm and her shoes in the other to represent her clients. That is a level of dedication unmatched by anybody I've ever known. Diana's involved in many different community projects, but her current passion outside of her job, rock climbing, her husband Josh and her fabulous boys, Caleb and Toby, is serving on the board of Project Weber Renew, a fairly new organization designed to provide support to at-risk populations, including transgender sex workers. I have no doubt that Diana will continue to be an advocate for disenfranchised and marginalized communities throughout her career. We are so very proud of her. Please join me in congratulating Diana as our 2019 alumni champion. I have a speech that's fairly sentimental, which I tend to be, but it's also short. So bear with me. I don't often get three minutes where I'm not being interrupted at all, and I just can't pass them up, so. Miriam Webster declared justice the word of the year for 2018 after a 74% increase in online searches from 2017. I don't know why now. We are so interested in defining justice. Maybe a reaction to the increasingly urgent problems we see in our community. It may be that we search for the meaning of justice because we want to know that there is an attainable ideal. We seek to define justice because we recognize that it is a necessary virtue of a fair society. We are here tonight to support the Roger Williams Feinstein Institute and its unique role in our community delivering justice. Its programs encourage students to see that it is their responsibility as lawyers to actively promote fairness in our legal system, whatever career path they choose, and to support those who do go on to public interest careers. When I started Rhode Island Legal Services, I was, I admit, naively optimistic about my personal ability to deliver justice to my clients in every situation through my zealous representation and sheer force of will. As you can imagine, 15 years later, I've been thrown off my high horse quite a bit and tripped over my soapbox. I am less naive and more world weary than I was 15 years ago, but I am still optimistic, mostly because of the faith of my clients and the work of so many in this room. Rhode Island Legal Services primarily serves the poor and poverty-related representation. And every day we see new clients whose cases are inseparable from the poverty they endure. Often they have been let down by people in systems who have promised to help them. Often they come in having never met us, don't know us, have been let down by people who promised to help them and have no reason to believe that we are looking out for them. And yet the extraordinary thing is that, despite this, they have hope that justice will prevail. They have hope that the truth will come out, that the court will show them compassion, and that their lawyer will do everything within their power to obtain a just result. Despite all of the trippings up that I've had, if these clients who have seen so much, who have been through so much, and who have endured so much, still have hope that justice will prevail, we have no business doubting it, and an obligation to do everything we can to facilitate justice. This is the fight worth having. Because even though we have not eliminated poverty, even though our system is imperfect, even though inequity is abound, and even though I cannot define justice for you tonight, I can tell you I know it when I see it and that we in this room meet that ideal and fits and starts in ways small and occasionally large every day. I see it with my colleagues at Rhode Island Legal Services who came out to support me tonight, who keep people from losing their homes and make sure they have the benefits they need to support their families. Or when my friends at the Public Defender's Office work tirelessly and leave no stone unturned on behalf of their clients. Or when Dorcas Place keeps families hoping for the quiet dignity of an honest life together in this country, together as families. There are so many examples here that I can't name them all. When law firms and lawyers like Robert McConnell, who it's too much to do in too little time, extend themselves through pro bono work. Another example. Thank you to everyone for what you do. Congratulations to the other award recipients. Thank you to the Feinstein Institute and the host committee and my mentor Lori, to my husband Josh and my boys who wore their handsome suits very nicely and been behaving so well tonight. My colleagues, my sisters and my work wife, thank you all so much. It's an incredible honor and a privilege for me to be able to present the Community Partner Champion Award to the Rhode Island Public Defender's Office. I've had the pleasure of working very closely with that office since I arrived here in Rhode Island in 1994. And the concept of this award, Community Partner Champion Award, the Public Defender's Office here is the ideal recipient in my view for that award because that title and both pieces of that title completely fit the work of the Public Defender and our relationship with that office. The lawyers in the Rhode Island Public Defender's Office and very importantly the support staff that make that office run and support that work. Those folks are true champions in the daily battle for justice. They work incredibly long hours with less than incredible pay and under less than glamorous circumstances doing some of the most important work that one can imagine. Giving voice to the voiceless, giving power to the powerless and defending the most sacred of our constitutional rights against the all-powerful government. It is hard, challenging and often defeating work and I marvel at the passion, the dedication and the raw talent that so many of them bring to the enterprise each and every day. The Rhode Island Public Defender's Office is also a true partner to the School of Law. Since the day the law school opened its doors, the office has taken our students in as interns and as externs providing invaluable training and exposing students to the best of criminal defense practice. They have participated in more programs at the law school than one could ever count and one could ever imagine. A number of attorneys in the office have been members of our adjunct faculty sharing their expertise with our students and the office has hired so many of our graduates to join their ranks. By my count, there are 19 Roger Williams University School of Law graduates currently working as public defenders in the Rhode Island Public Defender's Office. It gives me great pleasure to introduce one of those 19 graduates, Matthew Toro, class of 1997, who is the deputy public defender to say a few words as he accepts this award on behalf of the office. Well, Andy, thank you for those kind words and first of all, I would like to thank Roger Williams University School of Law and to congratulate Bob McConnell and Diana DeGroof on their recognition as a 2019 champion for justice award recipient. It is well deserved and we're happy to share this night with you. The Champions for Justice states that it celebrates those whose exceptional dedication and devotion to social justice increases access to justice for all. And at the risk of sounding boastful and being in the office for over 20 years, I can say one thing. Damn straight, the public defender's office is a champion for justice. Mary and I sit in the unique position and witness the extraordinary efforts of every member of the public defender staff. They fight for fair and equal treatment of our clients in the face of numerous obstacles. And those obstacles come in many forms. Some personal to each client and some systemic to the collateral consequences of being poor, suffering from mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, or chronic homelessness. But the biggest potential obstacle for all public defenders is not any of those obstacles. And it is the largest obstacle that we can overcome and that's apathy. Apathy is the most corrosive mental state that can do more damage to our cause and the cause of Champions for Justice than anything else. We represent unpopular clients and advocate unpopular causes. And we bear witness to racial and socioeconomic injustices day in and day out. Our clients all too often lose more than they win and we are left in the unenviable position to minimize harm. Ours is truly an uphill struggle. Doing so with unconscionable caseloads, poor public perception and, excuse me, in the odds stacked against us, makes for fertile grounds for apathy to set in. Remarkably, our entire staff has steadily maintained a level of indignant outrage at injustices just as much as a first year hire would. Our staff go above and beyond the call of duty to offer assistance to those who had the terrible misfortune of being born poor with little to no opportunities. Because of each of our employees' tireless work ethic, we have tilted the scales towards balance and ensured increased access to justice for all. From the intake staff who deal with overcrowded waiting rooms, full of prospective clients who are understandably upset, yet each intake staff member takes the time and does daily acts of genuine kindness, compassion and patience. To the social workers and investigators who rise to the occasion at the drop of a hat and spring into action and leave no stone unturned in their quest for fair and appropriate treatment of our clients. To the secretaries and support staff who demonstrate professionalism and empathy to all our clients, they deal with constant interruptions yet keep the well-oiled machine going and make our attorneys the most prepared they can be. And lastly to the lawyers who work tirelessly under unconscionable caseloads, yet provide the best and most comprehensive legal representation in the state with uncompromisable ethics. The Rhode Island Public Defender Mission states that our commitment to treat our indigent clients with dignity, compassion and fairness, because we know as a wise man said, the greatness of a nation is measured by how we treat its most vulnerable members. So on behalf of all those members of the Rhode Island Public Defender family past and present, I humbly and gratefully accept this award from Roger Williams University of School of Law 2019 Champion of Justice. Thank you. My pleasure to turn the mic over to Eliza Borenberg. I don't quite remember when I first met Bob. He's like that. He doesn't seek the spotlight, but before you know it, he is standing out as the guy who's always there for you. Always picks up the phone and always responds to your emails, no matter how big or small the ask. When preparing my remarks for tonight, I spoke to many people who know Bob well, many of whom are here tonight. Vin Green, his brother Jack, Tenny Gross, P.J. Fox, Justice Alice Gibney, who I know wanted to be here, but wasn't able to make it because she had knee surgery. Father Ray Mom, who's here, Mayor Deosa, and Jeff Basting. Every person I talked to mentioned the word humility. Bob is humble. So humble, in fact, that rumor has it, he made a valiant effort to turn down this award. But Bob, like it or not, we couldn't let you turn down this year's champion for justice honor. I could describe Bob's incredible career, his cases, and all of his community involvement. But you can find that by googling him. What I really want to tell you is what makes Bob a champion. The word champion means warrior, fighter. Bob is definitely a fighter, a fierce advocate for the underdog. Bob has fought to vindicate the rights of children poisoned by lead paint, of low income and disabled people facing utility shut off, of people at risk of losing their homes to sinister foreclosure scams, and of victims of the opioid epidemic, just to name a few. Many of us think of warriors or fighters as visible, loud, and flashy. What makes Bob so extraordinary and so worthy of our attention is his unique approach. He is thoughtful, quiet, modest, and kind. These are the adjectives used to describe Bob's advocacy and his way in the world. But as his admirers will tell you, do not be fooled. This gentle approach is powerfully effective. As Justice Gibney put it, he doesn't feel the need to talk. So when he says something, you really listen. In 2006, Bob and his firm joined the pro bono collaborative, and Bob and I first crossed paths. Bob immediately took on a pro bono project aimed at protecting low income people from utility shut offs. Since then, I don't think he's ever turned down a request to provide pro bono legal service. For that I, and many, many low income Rhode Islanders are very grateful. Although I have a special place in my heart for Bob's pro bono collaborative work, as many of you already know, he is a world class litigator who doesn't shy away from the toughest, most heart wrenching cases if it means fighting a serious wrong. Bob represented Jason Ning's family as a volunteer attorney for the ACLU. Mr. Ning was an immigration detainee who died after being denied medical treatment at Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls. Jeff Basting, who as an RWU law student worked with Bob on the case, told me that Bob's approach to that case left such a lasting impression on Jeff that he calls on the experience every day in his work as an asylum officer interviewing refugees. Bob was also one of the first attorneys to represent lead poisoned children. He secured a settlement to guarantee the lifetime care of a child who was discovered at the age of two to have life-threateningly high levels in his blood. In addition to successfully advocating for these, those harmed by lead paint, Bob has been vocal in underscoring how race and poverty have kept lead poisoning from getting the attention it needs and deserves. As impressive as Bob's advocacy is, on behalf of his clients in the courtroom, he is also a natural teacher and fabulous mentor. Everyone I consulted talked about this. His colleague, Vin Green, told me that Bob has instilled his incomparable talent combined with his incredible humility in those he mentors and in so doing has made the legal community much better. In reviewing my own PBC email archives, I found countless emails from Bob to his PBC law students containing encouragement, gentle guidance, and accolades, always on time, always instructive, and always conveying a sense of confidence in their role and their work. Bob's infinite commitment to advancing social justice extends well beyond his work as an attorney. His admirers from his work with the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence told me that Bob exemplifies moral decency and kindness in every fiber of his being. OK, so I think you're likely starting to understand why we insisted that Bob be our champion for justice this year. Bob, tonight we recognize you for your successful legal career, but we honor you for the way you have advocated, quietly, deliberately, and with laser focus on fighting injustice. For all these reasons and many more, I am honored to present the 2019 Champions for Justice Award to one of my personal heroes, Bob McConnell. Thanks, Eliza, for that wonderful introduction. I have to say, as I was sitting there, I was thinking, hey, maybe I do deserve this award. But anyway, it's really a nice award, and I'm really truly honored. And I'm really especially proud to receive it tonight, along with Diana DeGroeuf and the Rhode Island Public Defenders Office. I'm really an excellent company tonight. I'd also like to particularly thank everyone at Roger Williams Law School and note that as a practicing attorney in Rhode Island for 30 years, how fortunate we are to have Roger Williams Law School. It wasn't there when I first started practicing. It's a real benefit to the Rhode Island legal community to have a stellar legal institution with strong administration and great professors who can speak independently and provide expert advice and legal analysis on issues that arise in Rhode Island. The Law School also produces excellent law students. I think some of them are here tonight. And attorneys, many whom I've gotten to know over the years and have become a great addition to the legal community in Rhode Island. I'd also like to recognize the terrific work of the pro bono collaborative under the leadership of Eliza Vorenberg, Susie Harrington-Steppen, and Laurie Baron. The PBC model really works, and it's a great opportunity for attorneys to do important pro bono legal work. The projects are meaningful, and the PBC really understands and connects with the legitimate needs of the community. I encourage you to explore some possibilities with the PBC if you haven't done so already. I've been involved in a number of PBC projects over the years. And most recently, I joined with some other lawyers in meeting with undocumented citizens. We helped them prepare powers of attorney in medical release forms, authorizing who would take care of their children in the event that the parents were detained by ICE. These were not easy conversations, to say the least. So I have to say, though, as a newly crowned champion of justice, I'd like to briefly touch upon the topic of social justice. Many of us are here tonight in this room because we've been provided with a number of opportunities to succeed in our lifetimes. I know that I certainly have. And I believe that social justice involves providing opportunities to others who may not be as fortunate or as privileged. Two really excellent organizations that work to provide such opportunities that I've had the pleasure of being involved with for a number of years are the Non-Violence Institute and the George Wiley Center. Now, the Non-Violence Institute was founded over 20 years ago by Sister Ann Keith and Father Ray Malm at St. Michael's Parish in South Providence. It was started as a result of the increased number of funerals of teenagers and young people taking place at St. Michael's, resulting from the violence in the shootings in the surrounding neighborhoods. The Institute has been a bedrock in the community ever since. Its core mission is based on Dr. Martin Luther King's steps and principles of nonviolence. It has grown over the past 20 years, and its programs now include the Street Worker Program, the Non-Violence Training Program, Victim Services Program, and Employment Education and Reentry Programs. These programs are just some of the opportunities that the Institute provides as it strives to build Dr. King's vision of the beloved community. The George Wiley Center was started by Henry Shelton and Patuckin in the 1980s. As an aside, I must say that both Henry and Sister Ann are legendary Rhode Islanders who've passed away recently and who throughout their lifetimes relentlessly planted the seeds of justice in Rhode Island. They were living examples of the teachings of St. Oscar Romero who taught that they have laid foundations that will need further development and have planted the seeds that will one day grow. And they have left us to water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. The Wiley Center organizes and advocates for low-income Rhode Islanders, and over the years has successfully campaigned for increased school breakfast and lunch programs, food stamp expansions, and utility fairness. It provides opportunities for children to be well-fed and not suffer from hunger during the school day. It provides opportunities for fair and reasonable utility payments so that people who are sick and need electricity to store their medications and keep their medical equipment running can live in their homes and stay alive. And it provides opportunities by preventing unfair utility shutoffs so that parents can provide their children with a hot bath and a warm bedroom to sleep in at night. As another aside, the Wiley Center will again be proposing legislation this year to implement a PIP program in Rhode Island. That's a percentage of income program, allowing people with very low incomes to pay a percentage of their income for the utilities. The PIP program, which has been implemented in other states, would help reduce the thousands of utility shutoffs that occur each year on Rhode Island and save people from the real dilemma of whether to eat or to eat. I encourage you to look into it and hopefully to help support it. In addition to providing opportunities for those in need, another good reason to get involved with the PBC and the many great nonprofits in this state is that it allows you to get close to and make connections with people you might not otherwise meet and to eliminate the barriers that separate us from one another. As Attorney Brian Stevenson, who's one of my heroes and I'm sure a hero to many of you here, tells us in his book, Just Mercy, you can't understand most of the important things from a distance. You have to get close. What I've come to learn through trying to get close over the years is that the apartment I'm entering is not just another apartment with shutoff utilities, but rather it's a household being run by a single mom who's struggling to raise her kids and to also support her elderly parents, but is always gracious and happy to see you and whose kitchen is always rich with wonderful aromas coming from the stove. That the group of students in class at the Institute are not necessarily hardened gang members, but in reality they're 15 and 16 year old young men who have the same hopes and dreams, senses of humor and insecurities as your teenage son and his friends, but who do need some assistance with direction and mentoring like many kids of that age. And I've also learned that the young man and woman who are smiling across the table while attempting to communicate in a little bit of English and a little bit of Spanish while they're filling out their forms are not illegal aliens, but a young married couple who love their children and who want to protect them the same as you do with your kids. In closing I encourage you to continue to find places where you can help opportunities for those less privileged to get close and to make connections and to remove barriers that sometimes divide us and to water the seeds of justice that have been planted and by doing so making us all champions of justice. Thank you. Congratulations to all our champions. Thank you all so much for being here and for your support. I just wanna thank two more folks who were instrumental in making tonight possible and those are the silent auction co-chairs, students at Roger Williams, Erica Brandt and Caitlin Horbert, I don't know where they are, but they've worked very, very hard to put together some auction packages to continue to support the great work that you've heard about tonight. So conveniently the silent auction items are quite proximate to dessert which will be served out where we had our cocktail reception. Thank you all so much, safe home and see you out in the hall.