A Celebration of Public Service
About the Program
The Public Service Awards Ceremony will recognize graduating students*, alumni, faculty, and community members who have made significant public service contributions.
The ceremony will include a speech by our keynote speaker and recipient of our Distinguished Commitment to Public Service Award, Camille J. Mackler, founder and chief executive officer of Immigrant ARC and formerly the director of Immigration Legal Policy at the New York Immigration Coalition. Among many things, Mackler coordinated legal efforts to respond to busing of migrants to New York City and New York State since 2022. Mackler also advocated for the evacuation of thousands of Afghans after the Taliban takeover in 2021, and on behalf of detained asylum seekers during family separation at the border in 2018, and again at John F. Kennedy International Airport during the Muslim travel ban in 2017.
Graduating Brooklyn Law students eligible for an award will be notified by the end of March. For questions regarding eligibility of hours or how to submit hours, please email publicservice@brooklaw.edu.
By invitation only.
Awardees
Members of the Class of 2025
Alumni Award for Excellence in Public Service
Michael H. Williams ’93
Michael H. Williams ’93 has worked as a lawyer in the government and nonprofit sectors for his entire career. He started as a litigator at the New York City Law Department but transitioned to in-house counsel at nonprofits beginning in 1999. Since 2007, Williams has worked as general counsel of Safe Horizon, the nation’s leading victim services organization, where he provides legal, strategic, and operational leadership to the organization. Williams has also served on the Board of New York Peace Institute, a New York City-based nonprofit that assists people in navigating conflict in a variety of ways. He helped establish the organization in 2011 and has served as board chair since 2014. He earned a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1993 and his undergraduate degree in 1989 from Tufts University. In recent years, Williams has expanded his activities to include creative pursuits in screenwriting and artist management.
Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Service
Deborah Berkman
Since 2017, Professor Deborah Berkman has been an adjunct clinical law professor at Brooklyn Law School teaching numerous classes relating to poverty, public interest and civil rights law, including the Economic Justice Clinic, the Disability Rights and Civil Rights Clinic, Introduction to Public Interest Lawyering, and the Pro Bono Scholars seminar.
Berkman is also the director of the Shelter and Economic Stability Project at New York Legal Assistance Group’s (NYLAG’s) Public Benefits Unit. Berkman and her team advocate for single adults and families in need to be provided with habitable emergency shelter and housing subsidies so that they may transition to permanent housing. Berkman also represents these and other low-income clients in accessing public benefits, including cash public assistance, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (food stamps) and Medicaid. She formerly worked in NYLAG’s Special Litigation Unit bringing class action and other impact litigation based on systemic denials of rights or benefits.
Prior to these positions, Berkman spent her career fighting on behalf of the disenfranchised at the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and in private practice. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and her J.D. from Fordham School of Law.
More Information
For general inquiries regarding this event, please contact the Public Service Law Center at publicservice@brooklaw.edu or (718) 780-0689.
Requests for a reasonable accommodation based on a disability to attend this event should be made to the Law School’s reasonable accommodations coordinator: accommodations@brooklaw.edu. Please make your request at least 10 days before the event. We will do our best to address accommodation requests made after the 10 days.