THE FESTIVE ATMOSPHERE of the joint birthday celebration of the New Hampshire Bar Foundation and New Hampshire Legal Assistance didn’t overshadow the reason the two organizations were being honored for their 25 and 30 years of work, respectively.

In making her birthday toast to the two organizations, Marilyn McNamara, executive director of the Legal Advice & Referral Center, dedicated the toast "to the people who tonight are sleeping in the rain; the low-income people who don’t have a roof over their head." McNamara’s toast served as a reminder of the purpose behind the years of work of the Bar Foundation and NHLA: providing equal access to justice.

The New Hampshire Bar Foundation’s Annual Dinner, held June 12 at CR Sparks in Bedford, this year was a celebration of the Foundation’s 25^th anniversary and NHLA’s 30^th. The event also marked the kickoff of the Community Campaign for Legal Services, a fundraising initiative of the Bar Foundation aimed at substantially increasing private support for legal services and thereby expanding legal help available to poor and disadvantaged people in NH. At the dinner, campaign Co-Chair John Funk announced pledges to the campaign of about $300,000 over the next three years by major law firms. The goal of the campaign is to raise $750,000 over three years.

Emily Gray Rice, chair of the New Hampshire Bar Foundation Board and campaign co-chair with Funk, challenged attorneys to go back and read their law school essays to remind them of why they became lawyers in the first place – in most cases, it was probably to help others through legal services, she believes. Contributing to the campaign, said Rice, is a way to fulfill that objective: "This (campaign) is a great opportunity to do the right thing."

The Bar Foundation Annual Dinner opened with the welcoming remarks of Rice, which included recognition of outgoing Bar Foundation Board of Directors member Richard Y. Uchida. Uchida served on the board for six years in various positions, including treasurer for the last three years.

Next was the presentation of this year’s Robert E. Kirby Award to attorney John T. Pendleton of the Nashua law firm Gottesman & Hollis. The Kirby Award – named in honor of attorney Bob Kirby, who died in 1996 at the age of 35 – is given annually to an attorney 35 years old or younger who demonstrates the traits of civility, courtesy, perspective and excellent advocacy that Kirby epitomized and "that are the inevitable characteristics of our best lawyers."

Pendleton, 35, served on the NHBA Board of Governors representing Merrimack County from 1999-2000 and was recently elected as governor for Hillsborough County-South. He has served on the Bar’s Ethics Committee since 1998 and served on the NHBA’s Delivery of Legal Services Committee from 1997 to 1998. He worked as assistant county attorney for Strafford County and as an associate with the Gleason Law Firm in Henniker. Pendleton is a member of the Criminal Justice Act panel, a group of attorneys on the U.S. District Court list who take court-appointed cases representing indigent defendants in criminal cases. He also serves as a director of Rape and Assault Services of Nashua.

U.S. District Court Judge Steven J. McAuliffe presented the Kirby Award to Pendleton. McAuliffe described Kirby as "an extraordinary leader – he was ethical and honest without being sanctimonious about it" and said that like Kirby, Pendleton is an "all-around good guy and exceptional lawyer."

"He is always civil and professional without being stiff about it," said McAuliffe. "He has always gone the extra mile for clients, whether they were indigent court-appointed or fee-paying clients, and he did so even when nobody was watching, which makes it all the more admirable."

Pendleton thanked his father, NH Bar member John B. Pendleton, and sister, Elizabeth Donovan, an attorney with the Portsmouth law firm Dwyer, Caramagno & Donovan, saying "they are who I learned a lot of my professionalism from." He also thanked his fellow attorneys at Gottesman & Hollis and colleagues like Jim Gleason and Bjorn Lange for their mentoring and professional support. Pendleton said he was "humbled" at receiving the Kirby Award.

The second award presented each year at the Foundation’s Annual Dinner is the Frank Rowe Kenison Award, which this year went to NH Supreme Court Associate Justice James E. Duggan. The Kenison Award is given annually in recognition of an individual’s contributions to strengthening the justice system in New Hampshire.

Justice Duggan was recognized principally for his efforts prior to being named to the Supreme Court, as an attorney for indigent defendants and a mentor to those in the NH Public Defender Program and at Franklin Pierce Law Center, and as longtime director of FPLC’s Appellate Defender Program.

In presenting the award, New Hampshire Legal Assistance Executive Director John Tobin said it was in recognition of Duggan’s "30 years as a teacher, mentor, lawyer, legal pioneer and practical idealist without fear."

Tobin said that in honoring Duggan, the legal services community was also honoring the Public Defender Program; Duggan was one of the state’s first public defenders and helped develop NH Public Defender into the effective and well-respected organization it is today, he said. "Jim Duggan is the public defender without peers. With his quiet passion, determination, elegance and level of professionalism…he raised the level of practice so that Public Defender was supported in this conservative state," said Tobin.

Tobin went on to describe Duggan as "the epitome of thinking, talking, writing and working for justice."

"His example is what has inspired so many. He taught young lawyers that a sense of justice is important, and that a sense of injustice is important," said Tobin.

Duggan said that the fact that he was being recognized for his extensive work as a public defender was evidence that in New Hampshire, the bar supports quality indigent defense as part of an overall high-quality justice system. "There are very few states in which the bar would honor a lawyer who spent most of his career as a public defender. It shows the strong commitment of this bar to ensuring the integrity of the legal system and equal access to justice," said Duggan.

"When the legal system tolerates a low level of practice in the criminal justice system, that infects the rest of the system. By contrast, where the level of practice on the criminal side is high, judges can do their job better, clients are served better and the expectation is that the level of practice will be high for all lawyers," he said. "In New Hampshire, the Bar’s support of equal legal representation for indigent criminal defendants has contributed to the overall benefit of our justice system."

At the conclusion of the birthday festivities, Tobin asked everyone who had ever worked for NHLA, Public Defender, LARC or Pro Bono; taken a Pro Bono case; served on a governing board for a legal services agency; or otherwise supported the state’s legal services to stand. Looking around as nearly everyone stood, Tobin pointed out that "this is a broad-based community of people committed to equal access to justice."

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