Access to Justice Award Recipients
TALS congratulates the 2017 Access to Justice Award Winners! The following honorees were recognized for their contributions to the Tennessee's equal justice community! See each award and its criteria here.
Janice M. Holder Award Recipients:
Larry W. Bridgesmith & Caitlin (Cat) Moon, Legal Alignment
Larry W. Bridgesmith and Caitlin "Cat" Moon, both individually and through their collaborative efforts, have made tangible and lasting contributions to expanding access to justice in Tennessee by addressing the intersection of legal needs and technical solutions in innovative ways. Through their work with Music City Legal Hackers, they hosted a hackathon, the theme of which was LEGAL + Tech = A2J, in April 2017. The goal of the hackathon teams was working to solve actual challenges presented by Tennessee's legal service programs. The hackathon created tangible access to justice technology tools and included a grant to help fund the winning project.
B. Riney Green Award Recipients:
Carol Gish & Ashley Holliday, West Tennessee Legal Services
Carol Gish receives the B. Riney Green Award in recognition of her statewide services sharing information about the Fair Housing Act. Carol is known to many attorneys as a co-presenter on Fair Housing topics in order to ensure housing that is free from discrimination. Besides statewide collaboration, Carol has also been apart of the national fair housing movement by giving presentations at mulitple housing confences. After twenty-plus year, Carol retired from West Tennessee Legal Services in 2017.
Ashley Holliday receives the B. Riney Green Award for her multiple collaborations across the state. Ashley is active in the Housing & Consumer Task Force, often partnering with staff at Legal Aid of Middle Tennessee to promote better practices in their field. Ashley participates in statewide technology projects - most recently with online intake and www.HELP4TN.org. She is a TBA Tennessee Bar Association Leadership Law class and a west Tennessee 40 under 40 honoree.
New Advocate of the Year Award Recipient:
Christina Magráns-Tillery, Legal Aid of East Tennessee
Christina Magráns-Tillery is recognized for advocacy on behalf of tenants in Knox County General Sessions Court especially. Christina is known for her passion and commitment to finding favorable results for her clients. One person who nominated Christina noted, "she has had unfavorable fact patterns that she has turned into positive situations for her clients, opponents, and pro se litigants. Christina is also known for training landlords to know their legal requirements so that they are better landlords.