Ted Fillette and Hazel Mack-Hilliard receive Pierce Awards
April 11, 2008 Media Release
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Ted Fillette |
Hazel Mack-Hilliard |
(Raleigh,
NC) –
The Legal Services community in North
Carolina has awarded the 2008 Julian T.
Pierce Award to Theodore “Ted” O. Fillette of Legal Aid of North
Carolina in Charlotte, and Hazel Mack-Hilliard of Legal Aid of North
Carolina in Winston-Salem.
Fillette and Mack-Hilliard received the award during the biennial
2008 North Carolina Legal Services Statewide Conference in
Durham
on April 2. They are ninth and tenth recipients
since 1994 to have received the Pierce Award, which honors an
outstanding advocate of equal justice in North
Carolina.
The presentation was made by Richard M. “Dick” Taylor, CEO of the
NC Academy of Trial
Lawyers. Taylor
was LSNC’s executive director at the time of Julian Pierce’s
unfortunate death in 1988.
Taylor remarked that 2008 is the first time
that the Pierce Award had been presented to co-recipients.
“Ted Fillette is known in
Charlotte, within the legal
services community of North
Carolina and among legal
services housing nationally, as a preeminent advocate for the
housing rights of low-income people in the state of
North Carolina,” said
Taylor.
“His reputation is well deserved.”
Taylor noted that Fillette has served his
entire 33-year legal career as a legal services advocate.
Fillete has personally handled individual landlord-tenant
cases and handled precedent setting cases on behalf of tenants, has
actively participated in efforts to preserve and develop low-income
housing, has been instrumental in reforming statutory law affecting
tenant and had helped establish the North Carolina Housing Trust
Fund.
Fillette is a 1973 graduate of the Boston University School of Law.
He currently serves as assistant director and senior managing
attorney for Legal Aid of North Carolina in
Charlotte.
“Hazel Mack-Hilliard has a reputation across
North Carolina as a creative, passionate and
fearless advocate for the rights of low-income people,”
Taylor
stated. “She is known to approach her work with
fervor, compassion and an urgency to find solutions.
Equally important, she challenges those who work with her to
do the same.”
Taylor noted that Mack-Hilliard is perhaps
most known recently for her leadership and on the development of the
efforts to help low-income families with mortgage foreclosure
defense in North Carolina.
She is also well know for her leadership of the litigation
team that helped restore subsidized housing to Hurricane Floyd
victims in Eastern North Carolina., who were being forced to move
due to questionable zoning laws. Mack-Hilliard
has been practicing law in North Carolina
since 1985.
Mack-Hilliard is a 1980 graduate of the Temple University School of
Law. She currently serves as the regional manager
of the Triad Region for Legal Aid of North Carolina.
The Legal Services community established the Pierce Award following
the death of Julian Pierce in 1988. Pierce, a
Lumbee Indian, was the first executive director of Lumbee River
Legal Services in the Pembroke, NC area and spent his entire
professional life as an attorney who worked to ensure equal justice
for all.
In 1988, Pierce resigned his position to run for a new judgeship,
created to give under-represented North Carolinians
more access to justice. Before the election, he
was murdered, and the legal services community lost one of its best
advocates. The Pierce Award was created in his
memory to recognize outstanding advocacy that ensures equal justice
for all and for which Pierce was known.
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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CONTACTS:
Celia Pistolis (Assistant Director, Advocacy & Compliance,
Legal Aid of NC), Raleigh,
NC,
856-2564
Theodore “Ted” O. Fillette (Senior Managing Attorney, Legal
Aid of NC-Charlotte Office); Charlotte, NC 704-971-2621
Hazel Mack-Hilliard
(Regional Manager, Triad Region, Legal Aid of NC),
Winston-Salem, NC,
336-725-9162
Dock Kornegay (Director, Public Relations & Development, Legal Aid
of NC),
Raleigh,
NC, 919-856-2564
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Mission Statement
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.