The Public Interest Law Foundation at Columbia (PILF) will give Clive Stafford Smith its Public Interest Achievement Award at its fifth annual dinner on Mar. 30.
Smith, founder and executive director of the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center in New Orleans, has devoted his career to representing inmates on death row. During the past 11 years he has fought against the death penalty in the courts and legislatures of the South.
After graduating from Columbia's Law School in 1984, he worked under a PILF grant at the Southern Prisoners' Defense Committee, now the Southern Center for Human Rights, in Atlanta. During his nine years there, he was an advocate for more than 100 death row inmates, and was a leader in an effort to persuade the Georgia legislature to abolish the death penalty for the mentally handicapped.
In September 1993, Smith founded the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center in an effort to provide quality representation for defendants in capital cases. He chose Louisiana because the state had the highest per capita execution rate in the country, due in part to a bar association policy of not reimbursing lawyers for their defense of indigent clients. Most death penalty resource centers are involved solely in appellate work, but the LCAC represents its clients during both trial and appeal in an effort to change Louisiana's record. Over the course of his career he has been the advocate for more than 200 death row inmates, of which only three have been executed, and he is recognized as one of the leaders in the opposition to the death penalty.
PILF is a coalition of law students, faculty, graduates and community residents working to promote public interest work within the legal profession. Since its inception in 1981, PILF has provided more than $200,000 in grants to legal service organizations throughout the United States. The Foundation also awards fellowships to law students devoting their summers to public interest work.
The dinner will be in Low Rotunda. For information, call Clare Huntington at 932-7988.