UW Law School clinical professor Marsha Mansfield ‘84 and attorney Jennifer Binkley ‘01 have been chosen to receive the Gordon Sinykin Award of Excellence for 2006. The award recognizes a lawyer, law firm, or group of lawyers for their work on an individual law-related education or public service project in the preceding year.
The Sinykin Award is being conferred jointly on Mansfield and Binkley for their work in developing a pro se divorce video series to help the increasing numbers of individuals appearing in family court unrepresented by attorneys (an approximate 70% to 80% of all family law litigants).
As Chair of the Dane County Bar Association Delivery of Legal Services Committee, Mansfield introduced the idea of a video series and, beginning in 2003, led the committee in writing video scripts and raising funds to support production, a project for which she wrote numerous letters and notes. In 2004, Binkley joined Mansfield as co-chair of the committee, working on the first video, titled Moving On, a general review of the divorce process. The second video is forthcoming in 2006.
Moving On is available statewide, with 1,000 copies distributed to 45 circuit courts, libraries, bar associations, and service organizations. The second video will be distributed in the same manner.
Attorney Teresa Kobelt, one of the individuals who recommended Mansfield and Binkley for the Sinykin Award, noted in her nominating letter, "As far as I know, there is nothing else like these videos available to pro se litigants, and its service to the public is invaluable. It is only through the foresight, hard work and dedication of Marsha and Jennifer that this project came to fruition."
Mansfield joined the Law School faculty in 2002. She is founder and director of the Law School’s newest clinical project, the Family Court Assistance Project, through which law students help make the legal system more accessible to low-income, unrepresented people with divorce, post-divorce, paternity, and restraining order matters. (See http://www.law.wisc.edu/fjr/eji/familycourt/index.htm .)
Mansfield is also President of the Dane County Bar Association.
Mansfield and Binkley will receive the Sinykin Award formally on May 3, 2006, at the State Bar Public Service / Pro Bono Volunteeer Lawyers Recognition Celebration at Monona Terrace in Madison.
This is the second time in three years that a member of the UW Law School clinical faculty has won the Sinykin Award: Professor Michele LaVigne won the award in 2004 for her work in founding the Mock Trial Team at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf.
Submitted by on April 7, 2006
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