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The North Carolina Bar Association, in conjunction with the N.C. Pro Bono Project of the NCBA Foundation, will present its 2005 Pro Bono Service Awards during the 107^th NCBA Annual Meeting at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.

The awards will be presented Friday, June 24, at the President’s Luncheon hosted by outgoing NCBA President G. Gray Wilson of Winston-Salem. Steve Mikita, assistant attorney general for the State of Utah in the Division of Children’s Justice, is the featured speaker.

The luncheon begins at 12:30 preceded by a reception at noon.

Christine Mumma, executive director of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Actual Innocence, has been selected to receive the 2005 William L. Thorp Award, presented annually since 1984 by the NCBA.

The award recognizes the Pro Bono Attorney of the Year and was named in memory of Bill Thorp, a founder of Legal Services of North Carolina, in 2002.

The 2005 recipient of the Outstanding Legal Services Attorney Award is Hazel Mack-Hilliard, senior managing attorney for Legal Aid of North Carolina-Winston-Salem.

Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman, LLP, has been selected to receive the Large Law Firm Award, with the Outstanding Pro Bono Services Award for Smaller Law Firms going to Block Crouch & Keeter, LLP, of Wilmington.

The Duke University School of Law’s Guardian ad Litem Program will receive the Law Students Pro Bono Project Award.

Lisa Gordon, an associate in the Raleigh office of Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough LLP will receive the Younger Lawyer Pro Bono Award, presented by the NCBA Young Lawyers Division.

Mumma, a 1998 graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law, has devoted her legal career to innocence initiatives. Following clerkships with the N.C. Court of Appeals and Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr. of the state Supreme Court, she worked full time, without compensation, on the emerging innocence projects at the Duke University School of Law, the UNC School of Law and the UNC School of Journalism.

Since its inception in 2002, Mumma has served without compensation as the sole staff member of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Actual Innocence. North Carolina was the first state to establish such a commission, and thanks in large part to Mumma’s unparalleled efforts, it remains a model for fledgling innocence commissions nationwide.

Mumma helps coordinate innocence programs at the Duke, UNC, North Carolina Central University and Campbell University law schools.

Mack-Hilliard, a graduate of the Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, has served as staff attorney and managing attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Northwest N.C., and as program director for Eastern Carolina Legal Services (now Legal Aid of North Carolina-Wilson)

Kennedy Covington, with offices in Charlotte, Raleigh, Research Triangle Park, Columbia, S.C., and Rock Hill, S.C., has a proud track record of pro bono contributions and community service. Of particular note in the past year, Kennedy Covington attorneys have provided more than 3,000 pro bono hours on behalf of the Navy landing field opponents who have been fighting plans to build a practice landing field on 30,000 acres straddling Washington and Beaufort counties.

Each attorney at Block Crouch & Keeter devoted more than 40 hours of pro bono representation last year in support of the firm’s commitment to providing access to equal justice. The firm participated in a family law clinic and assisted in incorporating Helping Our Latin Americans (HOLA), a nonprofit group that provides outreach to the Hispanic population in southeastern N.C.

Twenty-two Duke law students have volunteered to serve during 2004-05 in the Guardian ad Litem pro bono group. The students make two- and three-year commitments to the pro bono program, thereby enabling children whose lives are frequently disrupted to experience long-term contact with the volunteers.

The program also allows first-year Duke law students to have a meaningful pro bono experience. The students have contributed some 1,300 hours in service to approximately 100 children.

Gordon was honored last year by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as the recipient of an Award of Merit. She has handled or consulted on cases involving children in Panama, Mexico, Hungary, Canada and the Netherlands, and is one of but a few attorneys in the southeastern U.S. to do so.

A graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Law, Gordon has logged more than 300 pro bono hours on international abduction cases since 2001.