Newton, MA—Third-year student Cori Phillips has been awarded the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Ethics Award, the first BC Law student to be nominated since 2006. She will be honored on April 21st at a banquet at the Union Club in Boston, where U.S. District Court Judge William Young will be keynote speaker.

Phillips was nominated by BC Law Professor Alan Minuskin, who supervised her during the Fall 2010 term as a student attorney in the Civil Litigation Clinic. The clinic handles family law, housing, and public benefits cases for indigent clients.  The case loads consist of a mixture of case types and present a variety of ethical and relational challenges.

Phillips’ "consistently strong, invested, and devoted performance throughout the course of her practice made her a stand-out candidate for this year’s award," Minuskin said.

Phillips established herself as an ambitious and hard-working student, handling six cases during her term, a high case load for a clinic student. Not only did she have an “enormous capacity for undertaking work,” said Minuskin, but she also “expressed interest in cases presenting unusually tough problems…I marveled at Cori’s patience, organization, clarity, persistence, and compassion.”

Phillips is one of two students who have been asked to present their case to one of Professor Minuskin’s ethics class this semester. Her presentation will provide valuable theoretical and practical insights into handling ethically challenging cases such as the ones she faced. 

“Very few young lawyers approach these issues with the combination of brains, stomach, and heart that I witnessed in Cori last semester, Minuskin said. "I fully expect to be consulting her on tough matters someday.”  

The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) is the world’s largest organization serving the professional and business interests of attorneys who practice in the legal departments of corporations, associations and other private-sector organizations around the globe.

They promote the common interests of members, provide resources to help save time, money and effort, contribute to their continuing education, help them succeed in their careers and provide a voice on issues of national and international importance.

With more than 26,000 members employed by over 10,000 organizations in more than 75 countries, ACC connects its members to each other, and to the people and resources necessary for their personal and professional growth.