April 29, 2008 (NEW YORK) -- The New York City Bar awarded this year’s Kathryn A. McDonald Award for Excellence in Service to Family Court to Jennifer Friedman ’98, the founder and director of the Courtroom Advocates Project (CAP), which offers pro bono advocacy to domestic violence victims petitioning for orders of protection in New York City’s family courts.
Friedman launched the program in 1997 — while she was in law school — under Sanctuary for Families, an organization that helps battered women and their children. CAP has recruited and trained more than 6,200 law students from 10 New York City-area law schools and summer associates from over 45 city law firms, who have advocated for nearly 5,500 battered women.
As an undergraduate at Columbia College, Friedman helped found the Columbia Rape Crisis Center.
The Kathryn A. McDonald Award is named in honor of the former Presiding Judge of the New York City Family Court. McDonald, who passed away in 2000, graduated from Columbia Law School in 1963.
