Every year the Law and Justice Program Committee honors an individual who has made a significant contribution to law and justice. The winner of the Distinguished Achievement Award gives a lecture at a luncheon attended by faculty, administrators, students and the wider community. Past recipients are:

  • 2013:  Udi Offer,  Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union, NJ [event planned Fall 2013]
  • 2012:  Jack Furlong, criminal defense attorney: “Are Criminal Trials Dead?”
  • 2011:  Jon Bramminick (NJ Assemblyman): “Reasonableness in NJ Law”
  • 2010: Judge John E. Wallace (former NJ Supreme Court Justice)
  • 2009:  Judge  Deborah T. Poritz,  (former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey)
  • 2008: Patricia Hart (Executive Director Womanspace, Inc.): "Coordinated Community Response: The Path to Justice for Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Survivors"
  • 2007: James C. McCloskey (Founder and Executive Director, Centurion Ministeries): "Convicting the Innocent in America"
  • 2006: Judge John J. Gibbons (former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit) : "Detainees and the Geneva Convention"
  • 2005: Dena Mottola (Executive Director, N.J. Public Interest Research Group: "Building the Capacity for Change: Citizen and Organizational Power"
  • 2004: David Feige (attorney, author, and former Public Defender, Bronx, NY, and author): “Eyewitness Identification: Science in the Courtroom”
  • 2003: Patrick Budd (Executive Director, Legal Aid Society, Trenton, NJ): “Accessing Justice: Separate and Unequal in America?”
  • 2002: Lorry Post (former Executive Director, New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium) “A Death Penalty Moratorium”
  • 2001: Amnesty International USA
  • 2000 (Fall): Joan Pennington (attorney and founder, Women’s Law Project): “Women and the Courts”
  • 2000 (Spring): Steven Hallett (attorney and President NAACP, Trenton Chapter): “Brown v. Board of Education 45  Years Later:  Is Racial Segregation in our Public Schools Over Yet?”
  • 1999: Steven Donziger (attorney , policy advocate, legal scholar): "The Real War On Crime: The Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission"
  • 1998: The Honorable Maryann Bielamowicz , (New Jersey Superior Court)"Issue in Criminal Justice: Juvenile Crime, Megan’s Law, and the Death Penalty"
  • 1997: The Honorable Linda R. Feinberg, (New Jersey Superior Court): "Complementary Forms of Dispute Resolution"