The Philadelphia Bar Association, along with co-winner North Carolina Bar Association, will each receive a 2009 Harrison Tweed Award for achievement in preserving and increasing access to legal services for the poor. The award winning activities of each of these bar associations demonstrate the wide range of activities that bars engage in to promote access to justice. 

The Philadelphia Bar Association is being honored for its role in creating, supporting and sustaining the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Pilot Project, which has saved hundreds of low-income homeowners from the loss of their homes.

The North Carolina Bar Association is being recognized for its innovative “4ALL” campaign to increase access to legal services for the poor through a four-prong approach: educate, legislate, donate and participate.

The award, given annually by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, will be presented during the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago on Friday, July 31, at a joint luncheon of the National Conference of Bar Presidents, National Association of Bar Executives and National Conference of Bar Foundations.

The Harrison Tweed Award was created in 1956 to recognize the extraordinary achievements of state and local bar associations that develop or significantly expand projects or programs to increase access to civil legal services for poor persons or criminal defense services for indigents.