5/13/04--Boston College Law School is pleased to announce that third-year student Dan Roth has been chosen to receive this year's Drinan Family Fund Award. Roth will use the award to pursue his commitment to social justice and public interest law.

“Dan has demonstrated his commitment to public interest work in all of his activities at the Law School,” said BC Law Professor Mary Bilder. “His commitment follows from his belief that law can and should serve the social purpose of ensuring good to all Americans. Dan’s commitment to social justice and public interest work stems from the same Jesuit commitment to social justice that founded this school. I have no doubt but that Dan will go on to become an alumnus who will embody the values that BC Law holds most dear.”

Roth, who graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University in 2001, has served as a volunteer at the Alliance for Justice in Washington, D.C., and as a summer associate at Klein Hornig, LLP, an affordable housing and community development firm. He was a student advocate for the Community Enterprise Project at the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center. He also served as a research assistant to Professor Avi Soifer at BC Law. Roth will serve as the Dorot Fellow for Alliance for Justice after graduation.

Roth has received the LSA’s President’s Award for Leadership and Service, and Lambda’s Courage Award in 2002. Among his many other activities, Roth has served as the president and treasurer of the American Constitution Society, as vice-president of the Public Interest Law Foundation, and as Co-Chair of the BCLS Policy and Remedies Committee of the Task Force on Nondiscrimination and Military Recruiting Policies. He is a founding member of the Coalition For Equality at BC Law.

“I believe that those of us who are armed with law degrees have the knowledge and public stature that can be put to use to frame the injustices of our current system of criminal justice in such a way as to truly effectuate change,” Roth writes in a recent essay. “A law degree provides one with a knowledge base vital to the understanding of the interconnected systems and values of our constitutional democracy.”

Named after former Dean and Congressman Rev. Robert Drinan, S.J., The Drinan Family Fund Award provides award recipients $10,000 each year for two years. Its purpose is to provide assistance to recent graduates with loan repayment, so that they may pursue public interest careers. The Fund was established in 1998 by anonymous friends of the Law School.