Professor Louise Trubek has been named the recipient of this year's Marygold Shire Melli Achievement Award from Dane County's Legal Association for Women (L.A.W.) Presentation of the award will take place on November 1 at the University Club. Students, alumni, professors and staff are invited to attend this reception, which will last from 5 to 7 p.m., with the award presentation set for 5:30. This occasion will recognize Professor Trubek for her longtime commitment to public interest law, including her 25 years leading the Law School's Center for Public Representation.

Following is the text of the Legal Association for Women's announcement of this award:

This year's recipient of the Legal Association for Women's Marygold Shire Melli Achievement Award is Louise Trubek, a clinical director and senior attorney for the Center for Public Representation and a clinical professor in the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Professor Trubek graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1957 with highest honors and earned her LL.B. from Yale University School of Law in 1960. After a term of employment in a Connecticut law firm, she returned to Madison in 1973 with the vision of starting a public interest law firm that would not only represent clients who could not afford lawyers to represent them in matters of public interest, but would also help teach law students about representing clients at governmental hearings of various types. Over the last 25 years, the Center investigated the practice of red-lining in mortgage loans and insurance (the practice of marking off certain neighborhoods in which it will be difficult or more expensive to obtain mortgages or insurance). It has promoted the rights of women and the poor in health care and welfare, and has taken a leadership role in the creation of the Citizens Utility Board, the writing of a patient's bill of rights, the provision of assistance to pro se litigants in family court and helping provide non-profit groups' access to technology.

A colleague, Arlen Christenson, Emeritus Professor of Law, has written about Professor Trubek that she "was always aware that law exists for the benefit of the public and not just for a particular group or for affluent special interests. The public should be able to understand and use the law to improve their lives."

Professor Trubek has been the recipient of other awards. She was given the Human Rights Award by the Association of Trial Lawyers in 1987, and in 1994 was named by The Milwaukee Journal as one of the ten people in Wisconsin who had made a difference in the preceding decade.

The Marygold Shire Melli Achievement Award was established by the Legal Association for Women to honor Professor Melli upon her retirement from the law school.

Submitted by on October 24, 2000

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