Pro Bono Kick-Off Honors Richard Ney (’78)
Annual celebration honored distinguished alumnus and educated students on volunteer legal opportunities.
On Thursday, October 2, BU Law students, faculty and alumni gathered for the annual Pro Bono Kick-Off to launch a new year of student service and to honor distinguished alumnus Richard Ney (’78) with the 2014 Victor J. Garo Public Service Award. Dean Maureen O’Rourke instituted this distinction—awarded annually to an alum demonstrating exemplary commitment to pro bono work—in 2007 to honor Garo’s 30-year pro bono commitment to a wrongful conviction case.
About Richard Ney
Ney is managing partner of Ney & Adams, a private practice devoted to criminal defense in Wichita, Kansas, which he founded in 1996 after nearly two decades as a public defender.
As a student at BU Law, Ney was a member of the Public Defender Program in the Criminal Law Clinic. He began his legal career as a first assistant then chief public defender in Danville, Illinois. In 1984, he moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he established and headed the city’s first public defender office. Ney was then appointed chief federal public defender for the District of Hawaii in 1991, where he remained until returning to Wichita in 1996 to found his private practice.
Until January of 2014, he was one of ten federal death penalty resource counsel in the United States, trying and consulting on federal capital cases throughout the country. He remains active in training and consulting with defense counsel in capital cases and has lectured to attorneys across the country on criminal law and ethics.
Launching Another Year of Pro Bono at the School of Law
In addition to honoring distinguished alumni, the Pro Bono Kick-Off educates students on the many opportunities to engage in volunteer legal work at the School and beyond. Following Ney’s remarks, Elizabeth McIntyre (’14), an Equal Justice Works Fellow with Greater Boston Legal Services sponsored by WilmerHale and Staples Inc, discussed how she made pro bono service a part of her law school career. Current students involved in the Pro Bono Program, as well as faculty and staff, were also on hand to share their experiences and advice at the reception.
Students were invited to take the Pro Bono Pledge. In taking the pledge, JD students commit to completing a minimum of 35 hours of law-related work over the course of their three years in law school, and LLM students commit to a minimum of 12 hours.
The Kick-Off was held just two weeks after the annual Public Interest Orientation, where speakers included Greater Boston Citizenship Initiative Executive Director Veronica Serrato (’88), Professor David Breen, and a panel of students involved in public interest and pro bono at the law school. The Career Development and Public Service Office holds these events, as well as many others throughout the year, to help guide the many BU Law students who are interested in making pro bono and public interest work a part of their legal careers.