Morgan Carrin LAW ’15, Chukwudi Erechukwu LAW ’15, and Luz Denise Negron-Bennett LAW ’15 were honored with the Eve Biskind Klothen Law Student Award for outstanding pro bono and public service at the Philadelphia Bar Association’s June Quarterly Meeting.
Carrin was honored for her commitment to indigent defense within the criminal justice system. She began volunteering and then interning with the Defender Association of Philadelphia as an undergraduate at Temple University, and continued doing so throughout her law school career, concentrating her efforts on Project Dawn Court, a diversionary court for women struggling with prostitution and drug addiction. Among other services, Carrin presented a series of lectures on the Project Dawn Court to Temple undergraduates. She also spent two semesters with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, where she worked tirelessly on behalf of a convicted client to establish his claim of factual innocence.
Since his first year at Temple Law School, Chukwudi Erechukwu dedicated himself to the public interest, from assistance to low-income clients to issue advocacy to government service. He volunteered with the ACLU and Homeless Advocacy Project and completed summer internships with North Penn Legal Services and the Housing Unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, where he continued to intern for a full academic year. He completed clinicals with the Delaware Riverkeepers Network and the Philadelphia Law Department. Erechukwu was twice selected for the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network MLK Fellowship.
Before coming to Temple Law School, Denise Negron-Bennett spent ten years working in the fields of child welfare, public safety, domestic violence victim services, and shelter-based social work case management. During law school, she interned with the Temple Legal Aid Office – Family Law Division, the Montgomery County Public Defender’s Office, and a legal clinic at the Inter-American University in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Negron-Bennett also provided hours of free Spanish interpretation to Philly VIP and HIAS PA clients through Temple’s ATLAS program.