B. Riney Green Award: Access to Justice Award

PURPOSE

This award is a way to recognize and emphasize the value the access to justice community has for a particular kind of accomplishment – one that promotes state-wide collaboration on a project beyond one organization and strengthens access to justice across the state.

HISTORY

One of the strengths of the provision of legal service in Tennessee has been the historic tradition of working together, across program lines, to address common problems that clients and programs face. To recognize and encourage those efforts, a person who promotes inter-program cooperation or otherwise strengthens the provision of legal aid in Tennessee is annually named the B. Riney Green Award recipient.

In the late 1990s B. Riney Green, a Nashville attorney, relentlessly led Tennessee’s effort to prevent the U.S. House and Senate from adopting provisions that would reduce funding to legal services and increase restrictions on legal aid programs. As a corporate lawyer and a Republican, he was a new and credible voice in this effort. He successfully engaged others in his effort and had access to representatives from across the party and ideological spectrum. His efforts in this state not only improved relations with the Congressional delegation, but were essential to the successful national effort to resist these legislative attacks. This award is named to honor his contribution at a critical time in the history of legal services in Tennessee and the nation.

HOW TO NOMINATE SOMEONE

The 2025 nomination cycle has closed.

PAST WINNERS

2024                Amy Willoughby Bryant

2023                Allison Jones & Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lytle

2022                Tessa Lemos Del Pino, Bethany Jackson & Karla McKanders

2021                No Award Given

2020                Spring Miller & Emily Stotts

2019                Jeannie Kosciolek

2018                Marcia Eason & Gary Housepian

2017                Carol Gish & Ashley Holliday

2016                Craig Barnes & Russell Fowler

2015                Lenny Croce

2014                Theresa Vay-Smith

2013                Gordon Bonnyman & Harrison McIver III

2012                Margaret Behm

2011                Beth Bates & Russ Overby 

2010                David Tarpley  

2009                Adinah Robertson 

2008                Pam Ford Wright & Bill Bush 

2007                Frank Cantrell 

2006                Sherry Wilds 

2005                Jennifer Jean Rosenbaum & Steve Xanthopoulos   

2004                Mary Michelle Gillum 

2003                Doug Blaze 

2002                Pat Mock 

2001                Stewart Clifton, Bill Haley & Mike Murphy 

2000                Linda Seely & Patti George 

1999                Bonnie King, Gloria Samuels & Christine Wolfe

Return to the Access to Justice Awards page.

Return to the Equal Justice University homepage.