- (above) OCU LAW Alumna Martha Tehan ’93 Receives the Outstanding Pro Bono Alumnus Award from OCU LAW Dean Lawrence K. Hellman.
OCU LAW held its annual Pro Bono and Public Interest Law Recognition Luncheon Friday, December 3 in the Gardner Center at the Meinders School of Business at OCU. The luncheon honored OCU LAW students’ commitment to community service by recognizing student pro bono volunteers, as well as recipients of the 2010 Dean’s Summer Pro Bono and Public Interest Law Fellowships, which provide a stipend for students who spend their summers working in government, public interest and non-profit environments. The luncheon was sponsored by the OCU LAW Professional and Career Development Center, which also administers the law school’s pro bono and public interest programs.
OCU LAW also honored the spirit of community service in its alumni by awarding the 2010 Outstanding Pro Bono Alumnus Award to Martha Tehan, a 1993 graduate of the law school. Tehan earned a bachelor’s degree in government at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Arkansas before receiving her law degree magna cum laude in 1993 from OCU LAW. She worked in the Washington, D. C. office of the late Senator John L. McClellan of Arkansas as a legislative aid, and has served as the Program Director of Redlands Council of Girl Scouts in Oklahoma City. She now has a full-time law practice where she concentrates on family law, juvenile, and probate matters. Tehan is a long-time volunteer for Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma and has represented in a pro bono capacity many Oklahomans who could not afford a lawyer but who had pressing legal needs. She also is a member of the Lawyers Helping Lawyers Committee of the Oklahoma Bar Association.
Delivering the event’s keynote address was Catina R. Drywater, managing attorney for Oklahoma Child Support Services, a division of the Oklahoma Department of Health and Human Services. Drywater is a member of the Cherokee Nation and a 1998 graduate of the University of Tulsa College of Law. After graduating from law school, she began her career as a public interest lawyer when she was hired by Legal Services of Eastern Oklahoma through a National Association of Public Interest Law Equal Justice Fellowship (NAPIL) to assist pro se litigants through the legal system with representation and education. She spent the next five years at Legal Aid, eventually becoming the Managing Attorney for the Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma Hotline. In 2004, Drywater began work as a State’s Attorney for Oklahoma Child Support Services, a division of the Department of Human Services, and is currently a Managing State’s Attorney for the Claremore office. While at OCSS, she has been instrumental in the creation of statewide pro se forms and access to justice programs. As a result, in 2009, she was the recipient of the Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Professional Service by the National American Inns of Court for her dedication to public interest law. The award was presented at the United States Supreme Court in the presence of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Antonin Scalia.
OCU LAW also honored host organizations for these fellowships including Catholic Charities, the Dallas County (Texas) Public Defender’s Office, the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program, the Pro Bono Committee of the Federal Bar Association, the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation in East Saint Louis, Ill., Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Bar Association General Counsel’s Office, Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office, Oklahoma County Public Defender’s Office, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeal, Oklahoma Indian Legal Services, Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, Litigation Section of the Oklahoma Office of the Attorney General, Public Employees Relations Board, The Equality Network, U.S. Attorney’s Offices of the Eastern District of Texas and the Western District of Oklahoma, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.