For Immediate Release
March 30, 2011

Media Contact:

Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9037

Peter Edelman

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A longtime advocate for the underprivileged and disadvantaged youth, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Peter Edelman has been selected as one of three recipients of the 15th annual Justice Potter Stewart Award by the Council for Court Excellence. The honor will be presented in Washington on May 12.

"Peter is enormously respected in the D.C. legal community," said June Kress, executive director of the Council for Court Excellence. "His vision has brought civil legal services to a population in great need in our community. He has inspired us with his dedication and his fierce advocacy in pursuit of justice for all."

Established in 1997, the Justice Potter Stewart Award honors the memory and public service of the late Supreme Court justice. It recognizes "individuals and organizations whose work on behalf of the administration of justice has made a significant contribution to the law, the legal system, the courts, or the administrative process in our nation's capital."

In addition to Edelman, this year's recipients of the award are the late D.C. homeless advocate Sister Mary Ann Luby and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Donald Santarelli. Past recipients include Earl Silbert, the first Watergate prosecutor; Lloyd Cutler, White House counsel during the Carter and Clinton administrations; and E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., a key negotiator with Cuba following the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Edelman, who has an extensive public interest background, is an expert in poverty, welfare, juvenile justice and constitutional law. In 1982, he joined the Georgetown Law faculty. He teaches constitutional law, federal legislation, public interest lawyering and social welfare law and policy. He took leave from the Law Center during President Clinton’s first term to serve as counselor to Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation.

Edelman served as director of the New York State Division of Youth and as vice president of the University of Massachusetts. He was a legislative assistant to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and issues director for Sen. Edward Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1980. He was also a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg and Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and worked in the U.S. Justice Department as special assistant to Attorney General John Douglas.

Edelman is the author of Searching for America’s Heart: RFK and the Renewal of Hope (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), and the co-author of Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men (Urban Institute Press, 2006). He has written numerous articles on poverty, constitutional law, children and youth, and has received numerous honors and awards for his work.. His Atlantic Monthly article, "The Worst Thing That Bill Clinton Has Done," earned him the Harry Chapin Media Award in 1997. In 2005, Edelman was honored with the William J. Brennan Jr. Award for his commitment to public service and equal justice. He was also the recipient of a 2007 Distinguished Service Award from the National Child Labor Committee.

Edelman is currently chair of the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission; board chair of the Public Welfare Foundation; board president of the National Center for Youth Law; board president emeritus of the New Israel Fund; and board member of the Center for Law and Social Policy, Center for American Progress Action Fund and several other organizations.  He has been a U.S. - Japan Leadership Program Fellow, as well as a J. Skelly Wright Memorial Fellow at Yale Law School.

 

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law, and the faculty is among the largest in the nation. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.