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(This is an excerpt from the March 2004 issue of California Lawyer magazine.)
California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year Awards for 2003
The CLAY Awards
By The Editors of CALIFORNIA LAWYER
Although much of law practice is collaborative, and any given project can span years, there are some achievements made by California lawyers that have such far-reaching impact that they cannot go unrecognized. The lawyers selected as Attorneys of the Year for 2003 substantially influenced public policy or a particular industry, brought about a significant development in their field of practice or in law-firm management, or achieved a notable victory for a client or for the public in a difficult, high-stakes matter.
-The Editors
CIVIL RIGHTS
Maria Blanco
Director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
Eva J. Paterson
Director, Equal Justice Society; San Francisco
Last year, Paterson and Blanco, then national senior counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, led a coalition of attorneys and community advocates to defeat Ward Connerly's Proposition 54, which would have prevented local, county, and state government agencies from collecting information about a citizen's race or ethnicity. Their opposition strategy, which included appealing to the California Republican Party and its contributors to withhold their support from the initiative drive in order to delay Connerly's signature-gathering, allowed the coalition time to work with a pollster and focus groups; develop Spanish-language ads; aggressively raise funds, bringing in more than $5 million; and build very broad-based opposition to the proposition, including the crucial opposition of the medical and public health communities.
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