June 27, 2005 MEDIA RELEASE

RE: Hazel Mack-Hilliard named outstanding legal services attorney

(Asheville, NC) – The North Carolina Bar Association has named Legal Aid of North Carolina's Hazel Mack-Hilliard of Winston-Salem as the 2005 recipient of its Outstanding Legal Services Attorney Award.

The North Carolina Bar Association honored Mack-Hilliard on June 24 during the President’s Luncheon of the 107th NCBA Annual Meeting at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. NCBA President G. Gray Wilson of Winston-Salem and NCBA Public Service Advisory Committee Chair David D. Daggett of Winston-Salem made the presentation.

“Hazel Mack-Hilliard is a shining example of a people’s lawyer,” noted Wilson during the presentation event. “She is an unyielding and unashamed spokesperson for the rights of the poor and marginalized. Mack-Hilliard exudes a passion for her clients, which is apparent in the motivation and zeal that she brings to her work. She also challenges those who work with her to do the same.”

For most of Mack-Hilliard’s 25 years as an attorney, she has worked in one capacity or another serving the legal services community. She currently serves as the senior managing attorney for the Winston-Salem office of Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC). Mack-Hilliard also serves as the project leader for LANC’s Mortgage Foreclosure Project, a statewide project whose goal is to keep working poor and working families in possession of their homes and their equity.

“The service she has provided for her clients and the entire legal services community for most of her legal career is immeasurable,” says Yvette Stackhouse, a managing attorney in LANC’s Winston-Salem office. “It obviously gives her great joy, and her enthusiasm is contagious.”

Mack-Hilliard is a graduate of the Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia and Winston-Salem State University. In addition to working with LANC, she has served as staff attorney and managing attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Northwest North Carolina, and as program director for Eastern Carolina Legal Services.

The NCBA was founded in 1899 and serves both attorneys and the general public with programs including professional support, lobbying on issues of interest to the Bar, continuing legal education programs, legal information materials, the Lawyer Referral Service, and support for pro bono legal services. The NCBA, which annually counts more than 70 percent of the state's practicing attorneys among its membership, is the largest voluntary legal organization in North Carolina.

Since 1991, the NCBA has annually presented its Outstanding Legal Services Attorney Award to an attorney who provides exemplary legal services through an agency or other nonprofit entity that serves low-income citizens.

Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to eligible, low-income people in all 100 counties in North Carolina through 24, geographically located offices in North Carolina. LANC’s clients typically have an annual income of 125% or less of the federally established poverty levels.

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Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income people in order to ensure equal access to justice and to remove legal barriers to economic opportunity.

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