Emil Gumpert Award

The Emil Gumpert Award is made in honor of the late Honorable Emil Gumpert, Chancellor-Founder of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Judge Gumpert, throughout his more than half-century professional career as an eminent trial lawyer, State Bar president and trial judge, substantially and effectively devoted himself to the administration of justice and to the improvement of trial practice. The award recognizes programs, public or private, whose principal purpose is to maintain and improve the administration of justice. The programs considered may be associated with courts, law schools, bar associations or any other organization that provides such a program. The Award is accompanied by a $150,000 grant from the Foundation of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

In addition to looking for programs that are compatible with the basic mission statement, the Emil Gumpert Award Committee pays particular attention to the following factors in evaluating applications:

• Is the program new and innovative?
• Precisely how will the award money be spent by the applicant?
• Will the applicant accomplish its intended project or goal without the award money?
• Can the applicant’s project serve as a model for wider application?

The Committee generally does not favor applications that:

• Seek funds for general operating expenses
• Support existing programs
• Add new employees who perform the pre-existing work of the applicant

Past winners, listed below, sought funding for new, well-defined programs that, if successful, could be replicated elsewhere.

Apply

The deadline to submit an application for the 2025 Emil Gumpert Award has passed. The application deadline is typically in mid-September, with a winner announced the following March.

Award Recipients

2024
Early Eviction Mediation Program
The Mediation Center of the Pacific, Inc.
Honolulu, Hawaii

2023
Second Chance At Life Initiative
Innocence Project New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana

2022
First Step Expungement Program
Clean Slate Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah

2021
Sentencing Fairness Program
Arizona Justice Project
Phoenix, Arizona

2020
Women’s Prison Project
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana

2019
Indigenous Human Rights Program
Pro Bono Students Canada
Toronto, Ontario

2018
Expanding and Enhancing Remote Access to Counsel for Detained Asylum-Seekers with Children
Fordham Law School Feerick Center for Social Justice (New York, New York) and Dilley Pro Bono Project (Dilley, Texas)

2017
Immigrant Post-Conviction Relief Project at Immigrant Legal Resource Center
San Francisco, California

2016
Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic at Loyola Law School
Los Angeles, California

2015
Extra Judicial Measures Pilot Project of Peacebuilders International
Toronto, Ontario

2014
Human Trafficking Courts Project of New York’s Urban Justice Center
New York, New York

2013
Miller Resentencing Project of the Florida State University College of Law Children in Prison Project
Tallahassee, Florida

2012
Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project
Florence, Arizona

2011
Southern Public Defender Training Center
Atlanta, Georgia

2010
Older & Wiser
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2009
Pro Bono Law Ontario
Ontario, Canada

2008
“And Justice For All”
Salt Lake City, Utah

2007
The National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children
Washington, District of Columbia

2006
Legal Aid University
Boston, Massachusetts

2005
Dakota Plains Legal Services
Mission, South Dakota