Dean Emeritus Lefstein Receives Dawson Indigent Defense Distinguished Service Award
09/06/2016
Dean Emeritus Norman Lefstein was presented with the Robert O. Dawson Indigent Defense Distinguished Service Award by the Texas Indigent Defense Commission. He received the honor August 30.
The commission presented the award to Dean Emeritus Lefstein for his career working to improve indigent defense in Texas and throughout the United States. His Texas contributions include many presentations at professional development events, consulting on the commission’s weighted caseload study, and as lead project designer of the Comal County Client Choice Project, which has successfully implemented the nation’s first program in which indigent clients select the attorney to represent them.
Dean Emeritus Lefstein has served as Director of the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia (PDS). During his time there, he started a program for criminal law professors to spend time working at PDS, usually during a sabbatical from their law schools. The agency provided the professors an office and an opportunity to be appointed to cases, and the professors agreed to serve as a legal resource. One of those professors was Robert O. Dawson, for whom this award is named.
Dean Emeritus Lefstein also chaired the Indiana Public Defender Commission for 17 years. He has served as a chair and member of the Indigent Defense Advisory Group of the American Bar Association (ABA), as well as serving multiple terms as a member and special consultant to the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants among many other leadership positions. His recent work has focused on the problem of high caseloads in public defense. He is the author of the book Securing Reasonable Caseloads: Ethics and Law in Public Defense, published by the ABA in 2011.
Dean Emeritus Lefstein led the law school from 1988 to 2002. He is a nationally recognized expert in the areas of indigent defense, criminal justice, and professional responsibility. He teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and professional responsibility at IU McKinney.