2017 Presented by The Chief Justice The Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award Distinguished Judicial Service Award Distinguished Federal Judicial Service Award Voluntary Bar Association Pro Bono Service Award Law Firm Commendation Presented by The Florida Bar President The Florida Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Awards Presented by The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division President Young Lawyers Division Pro Bono Service Award Justices of The Supreme Court of Florida The Honorable Jorge Labarga Chief Justice The Honorable Barbara J. Pariente The Honorable R. Fred Lewis The Honorable Peggy A. Quince The Honorable Charles T. Canady The Honorable Ricky Polston The Honorable C. Alan Lawson 2016 - 2017 Officers of The Florida Bar William J. Schifino, Jr., President Michael J. Higer, President-elect John F. Harkness, Jr., Executive Director TOBIAS SIMON (1929 - 1982) “He opposed capital punishment, pressed for criminal reform, fought to improve the jurisdiction of the Florida Supreme Court, taught scintillating law school classes and wrote books on appellate review. He made enemies doing so — but also a lot of friends.” In those few words of tribute, Roberta Simon summed up much of her illustrious father’s career that ended with his death from cancer at age 52, on Feb. 25, 1982. Toby Simon was well-known throughout Florida and beyond as a tireless civil rights attorney, a crusader for prison reform, and an appellate authority. During his 30 years of law practice, he represented such divergent interests as major land developers, Communists, Nazis, teachers’ unions, and governmental agencies. In between causes there were intervals as a visiting professor at the Florida State University College of Law and at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad Law Center. He died while serving as a representative of his fellow 11th Judicial Circuit lawyers on The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors. He counted Martin Luther King Jr. among his clients, having provided legal counsel for King during the 1960 civil rights marches in Florida and throughout the Deep South. “He defended everyone,” his daughter added in tribute. “He believed that every client, especially the underdog, deserves a competent lawyer.” Toby Simon’s spirit lives on in the chief justice’s award that bears his name and honors those other Florida lawyers who have unselfishly carried on his work. THE TOBIAS SIMON PRO BONO SERVICE AWARD Presented by the Chief Justice The Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award com- memorates Miami civil rights lawyer Tobias Simon, who died in February 1982. It is intended to encour- age and recognize extraordinary contributions by Florida lawyers in making legal services available to persons who otherwise could not afford them, and to focus public awareness on the substantial voluntary services rendered by Florida lawyers in this area. The award was created in 1982 and is believed to be the first of its kind in the country conferring recognition by a state’s highest court on a private lawyer for voluntary, free legal services to the poor. A permanent plaque listing the names of all award recipients is displayed in the lawyers’ lounge of the Florida Supreme Court Building in Tallahassee. 2017 RECIPIENT Mark Olive Tallahassee t was March of 1770, and British soldiers faced charges of murder in the killing of five people Iin the Boston Massacre. A more unpopular as- signment for a defense attorney is hard to imagine, but future president John Adams stepped forward, despite possible threats to himself and his family, to make sure that the soldiers received equal justice and a fair trial. That American tradition of justice for all is embodied in the 21st century by Mark Olive, who has devoted himself to an exhausting, tedious and unpopular cause: the defense of death row inmates. He is being honored for his exemplary pro bono assistance to his death row clients and the uncompensated legal assistance he has given to lawyers handling death penalty cases in Florida and throughout the country. Olive, a 1977 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, is an attorney in private practice in Tallahassee. He came to Florida in 1985 at a time of crisis, with eight executions the previous year and a backlog of post-conviction death penalty cases. He directed the Volunteer Lawyers’ Resource Center of Florida, Inc., which was funded by The Florida Bar to recruit and provide support and assistance to pri- vate counsel who represent indigent death-sentenced individuals on a pro bono basis in post-conviction proceedings. The resource center was the first of its kind in the na- tion, but it was so successful that other states adopted the concept, and Olive later headed similar centers in both Georgia and Virginia. Mark Olive’s hand can be seen in many important death penalty cases. In Hall v. Florida, which chal- lenged Florida’s rule on execution of the intellectu- ally disabled, he was part of the defense team before the U.S. Supreme Court and, on remand, the Florida Supreme Court. Olive also was on a team that pre- pared briefs and arguments for Atkins v. Virginia, in which the high court said executing people with intellectual disabilities is cruel and unusual punish- ment. He devoted substantial pro bono time for the team in Hurst v. Florida, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that Florida’s method of sentencing in capital cases was unconstitutional. Most recently, he became one of two pro bono counsel assisting Richard Glossip in Oklahoma. Glossip’s case raised questions first about Oklahoma’s method of execution and then about his innocence. The list goes on. On one U.S. Supreme Court case alone, Herrera v. Collins, which did not prevent the execution of Leonel Herrera in Texas, Olive spent well over 1,200 hours. Nominator Sandy D’Alemberte – a previous winner of the Tobias Simon Award – estimates that Olive has donated about 10,000 hours of pro bono service. Anthony Amsterdam, a law professor emeritus at New York University and another of Olive’s nominators, said: “As you know, I worked extensively with Toby Simon and loved the man. No one who was blessed with Toby’s companionship would be arrogant enough to guess what he would say on any subject. But I am as sure as I can be of anything relating to that mar- velous free spirit harnessed only by his dedication to the cause of freedom, that Toby would be proud to see Mark Olive honored with the award that bears his name.” THE DISTINGUISHED JUDICIAL SERVICE AWARD Presented by the Chief Justice A judge is in a unique position to contribute to the improvement of the law, the legal system and the administration of justice. The support of pro bono services improves the judicial system as a whole. This award is for outstanding and sustained service to the public, especially as it relates to support of pro bono legal services. 2017 RECIPIENT Honorable Virginia Baker Norton Administrative Judge, Civil Division Fourth Judicial Circuit here’s a very good reason that Virginia Bak- er Norton is being honored with the Distin- Tguished Judicial Service Award. “Virginia Norton suffers from an affliction which I do not be- lieve she will ever overcome,” said one of her nomi- nators. “She is simply unable to say ‘no’ to people who ask for help.” That “affliction” led Judge Norton to the program with which she is most identified: The DAWN (De- veloping Adults with Necessary Skills) program at the Duval County Jail. The program, which gives inmates vocational training and life skills and helps them earn a GED, was founded by Richard McKis- sick nearly 20 years ago. Almost from the moment Norton took the bench in January 2009, McKissick was grooming her to carry on his work with DAWN. The day before McKissick died at the age of 90 on Jan. 1, 2016, he and Norton had a bedside meeting to discuss plans for DAWN for the next week. Norton has worked with inmates in the jail’s one- room schoolhouse, reviewing topics from job strate- gies to patriotism. She even has worked one-on-one with students whom she has sentenced to the pro- gram. Now Norton – who has a gift of being collabor- ative yet often is called the “Board of One of DAWN” – is working with the city of Jacksonville and the sheriff’s office to expand the program. She is known for repeating a mantra she attributes to McKissick: “You can do better than this, and I am going to help you do better than this.” Norton took her first pro bono case as a new associ- ate fresh out of law school. It was a routine case of trying to keep a woman’s electric power from being turned off, but in talking with the woman, Norton saw the symptoms of an abusive relationship. That insight led Norton to seek social services for the woman and help her find a new, safe place to live. Norton has been an active participant and leader in Jacksonville Legal Aid since then. In 2005, as Florida grappled with the painful dispute over the life and death of Terry Schiavo, Norton helped found the Living Will Program of Jacksonville Legal Aid. The program, with clinics in low-income and elderly housing communities, continues today. Norton is the “go to” person in Duval County when a bar association needs a judge to assist with a CLE program or encourage pro bono legal service. She regularly takes part in One Campaign pro bono re- cruitment efforts and, in 2016, was one of the judges extending a personal thank-you to lawyers at the Jacksonville Bar Association’s first “Presentation of the Pins” pro bono recognition luncheon.