Stoel Rives to Receive Pro Bono Lifetime Achievement Award from Alaska Bar Association at 2023 Bar Convention in Fairbanks

Anchorage, Alaska—Stoel Rives, an AmLaw200 law firm, is pleased to announce it will be awarded the Pro Bono Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alaska Bar Association at the 2023 Bar Convention on Thursday, September 21, in Fairbanks in recognition of its commitment to providing pro bono legal support to Alaskans over the 15 years the firm has been operating in the state.

Stoel Rives is the fifth law firm to receive the Pro Bono Lifetime Association Award in the Alaska Bar Association’s 34-year history of issuing awards. The award is a reflection of the firm’s commitment to pro bono work and the office’s longstanding efforts on behalf of countless Alaskans. Attorneys of the Anchorage office have provided thousands of pro bono hours to the community since the office was founded in 2008. In the past three years alone, they have given more than 2,200 pro bono hours to Alaskans needing legal services.

“Providing pro bono services is an important component of our firm’s values and provides our attorneys a meaningful way to give back to their community,” said Alaska-based Stoel Rives Pro Bono Committee member Kevin Cuddy. “We are incredibly grateful to the Bar Association for its recognition of our ongoing commitment to providing legal services to Alaskans in need.”

In the past year, Stoel Rives attorneys were actively involved in helping a 15-year-old girl from Colombia obtain her green card; guiding numerous Alaskans through appeals for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits; representing local nonprofits in litigation, corporate, and real estate matters; and many more projects. In recent years, other matters the firm has been involved in include immigration and asylum issues, representing prisoners with civil rights claims through the Federal Pro Bono Project, advising Alaskans on real estate issues through the Alaska Legal Services’ Landlord-Tenant Helpline, and assisting local nonprofits with transactional, litigation, and real estate issues.

Last year, Stoel Rives received the Alaska Bar Association’s 2022 Bryan P. Timbers Pro Bono Award for its work over the past year on a complex foster care case. Stoel attorneys helped represent Nathon Pressley in a lawsuit that sought to hold Alaska’s foster care system accountable for its negligent mistreatment of Pressley. After hard-fought litigation, the firm was able to secure a significant settlement for Pressley and a commitment by the State of Alaska, Department of Health and Social Services to take into account certain recommendations and proposals to ensure that other foster care children would not have to endure the same treatment as Pressley.