On Friday, Nov. 6, the Indiana Pro Bono Commission will recognize Donald Leicht with the Randall T. Shepard Award for excellence in pro bono. The Shepard Award Dinner will take place at 6 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Indianapolis.

The Indiana Bar Foundation also will honor the Dechert Law Office with its pro bono awards during the Randall T. Shepard Award dinner at the Hyatt in downtown Indianapolis on Nov. 6.

Donald Leicht is being honored for his work in developing a family law arbitration program for low-income families and in recruiting attorneys to work pro bono in District 5. Leicht developed an arbitration program in an effort to better assist the courts and meet the under-served legal needs of low-income clients with family law cases. This innovative approach cleared a backlog of cases and has significantly increased the ability of pro bono district 5 to meet the legal needs of low-income families.

Vicki Williams, Pro Bono District 5 Plan Administrator, affirmed that "No one I know takes the motto 'equal access to justice' more seriously, or gives more of himself in terms of time, effort and commitment to turn those words into a reality."

The Dechert Law Office in Kokomo is being honored for its pro bono work for "the most complex cases involving developmentally disabled clients with communication difficulties, clients with cases involving more than one county, clients whose mental disabilities made it problematic for them to competently assist with their own cases, [and] clients whose needs were urgent time-wise," according to Williams.

The Randall T. Shepard Award for excellence in pro bono is named in honor of Randall T. Shepard, Chief Justice of Indiana, and presented by the Indiana Pro Bono Commission to honor his vision and leadership in pro bono in Indiana. Created in 2002, the award recognizes extraordinary contributions that are made toward ensuring that legal services are available to persons who otherwise could not afford them and serves to focus public awareness on the substantial voluntary services rendered annually by Indiana lawyers.

The Pro Bono Publico Awards are presented by the Indiana Bar Foundation to recognize the extraordinary contributions that are made toward ensuring that legal services are available to persons who could otherwise not afford them.