B. Riney Green Award: Access to Justice Award
PURPOSE
This award is a way to recognize and emphasize the value the access to justice community has for a particular kind of accomplishment – one that promotes state-wide collaboration on a project beyond one organization and strengthens access to justice across the state.
HISTORY
One of the strengths of the provision of legal service in Tennessee has been the historic tradition of working together, across program lines, to address common problems that clients and programs face. To recognize and encourage those efforts, a person who promotes inter-program cooperation or otherwise strengthens the provision of legal aid in Tennessee is annually named the B. Riney Green Award recipient.
In the late 1990s B. Riney Green, a Nashville attorney, relentlessly led Tennessee’s effort to prevent the U.S. House and Senate from adopting provisions that would reduce funding to legal services and increase restrictions on legal aid programs. As a corporate lawyer and a Republican, he was a new and credible voice in this effort. He successfully engaged others in his effort and had access to representatives from across the party and ideological spectrum. His efforts in this state not only improved relations with the Congressional delegation, but were essential to the successful national effort to resist these legislative attacks. This award is named to honor his contribution at a critical time in the history of legal services in Tennessee and the nation.
HOW TO NOMINATE SOMEONE
Nominations are currently closed.
PAST WINNERS
2024 Amy Willoughby Bryant
2023 Allison Jones & Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lytle
2022 Tessa Lemos Del Pino, Bethany Jackson & Karla McKanders
2021 No Award Given
2020 Spring Miller & Emily Stotts
2019 Jeannie Kosciolek
2018 Marcia Eason & Gary Housepian
2017 Carol Gish & Ashley Holliday
2016 Craig Barnes & Russell Fowler
2015 Lenny Croce
2014 Theresa Vay-Smith
2013 Gordon Bonnyman & Harrison McIver III
2012 Margaret Behm
2011 Beth Bates & Russ Overby
2010 David Tarpley
2009 Adinah Robertson
2008 Pam Ford Wright & Bill Bush
2007 Frank Cantrell
2006 Sherry Wilds
2005 Jennifer Jean Rosenbaum & Steve Xanthopoulos
2004 Mary Michelle Gillum
2003 Doug Blaze
2002 Pat Mock
2001 Stewart Clifton, Bill Haley & Mike Murphy
2000 Linda Seely & Patti George
1999 Bonnie King, Gloria Samuels & Christine Wolfe