4/26/10--Boston College Law School third-year student Anna Evans was one of eleven law students to receive the 2010 Association of Corporate Counsel's (ACC) Law Student Ethics Award, given out at the ACC Northeast Chapter's sixth annual awards dinner on April 15.

The Chapter created the awards program to recognize and encourage the ethical practice of law at the earliest stages of a young lawyer's professional career, and at the same time to shine a spotlight on ethics more generally, demonstrating that the legal community values lawyers who are guided by ethical principles, according to an ACC press release. The award includes a $1,000 scholarship and is given to those students who have demonstrated an early commitment to ethics through their work in a clinical program representing their first real clients

"Anna Evans is a skilled, zealous advocate for her clients," wrote BC Law Professor Sharon Beckman in her nomination letter, "but it is her extraordinary ability to also perceive the interests of others and, consistent with her ethical responsibilities, find common ground in the interest of all that I nominate her for this prestigious award."

The April 15 event was attended by many prominent judges of the state and federal trial and appellate courts in Massachusetts and the New Hampshire Supreme Court , as well as faculty from the participating schools, the presidents of other local bar associations, general counsel from local companies such as Boston Scientific, MIT, Biogen, Timberland and HP Hood, and managing and senior partners from law firm dinner sponsors.

Andrew L. Kaufman, Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, gave the keynote address regarding various ethical issues confronting the profession in the new economy, including those raised by possible IPOs for law firms, the outsourcing of legal business, and conflicts of interest created when lawyers move from one firm to another.

The Law Student Ethics Awards have become increasingly popular over the past six years, and are an excellent venue for in-house counsel, academia, law firms, and the judiciary to come together with a common purpose, to celebrate and promote the ethical underpinnings of the profession and to support and encourage the next generation of accomplished and ethical lawyers.