ALEXANDRIA, Va.–LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – John C. Yavis, Jr., a highly respected lawyer with the law firm of Murtha Cullina, LLP, Hartford, Connecticut, has been selected to receive the American Inns of Court’s 2007 Professionalism Award for the Second Circuit. The award will be presented in a special ceremony at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in New York City, on September 26, 2007, at 4:00 p.m.
The Second Circuit Professionalism Award honors a quintessential mentor — and as such, embodies fundamental values of the profession to which the American Inns of Court of Court is dedicated. The honoree is a senior lawyer, who for a generation or more has taught, supervised, and mentored developing practitioners in government, private practice, or public service, by word and by example. He or she is a “lawyer’s lawyer” — a master of the craft — whose life and work reflect civility, competence and ethical behavior. The Second Circuit Award seeks in particular to honor the unsung, unheralded mentor whose recognition by peers in the legal profession is overdue. The focus this year was on Connecticut, awards having been made in previous years to lawyers in New York and Vermont. Candidates are drawn from open nominations and selected by a panel of representatives from both the circuit and the American Inns of Court Foundation.
Mr. Yavis graduated from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s degree in Economics. He then received his LLB from Yale University. He went into private practice with the firm of Murtha Cullina where he has been an associate and then partner ever since. He concentrates his practice in litigation, arbitration and mediation. Having formerly served as Murtha Cullina’s chair of its Litigation Department and on its Executive Committee, he is now an arbitrator and mediator for the American Arbitration Association. A member of the Connecticut, American, and Federal Bar Associations, Mr. Yavis has been active with the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Manchester Board of Education, serving as its chair for four years.
Yavis was singled out for this distinction primarily because of his example to up-and-coming lawyers. A selfless mentor, he is known to go to great lengths on behalf of new lawyers who are struggling to learn what the profession is all about. Although he has close to fifty published decisions in his years as a litigator, he is still best known in Connecticut as a patient mentor, a nurturer, and an understanding coach whose greatest pleasure is watching a subordinate grow into a first-rate lawyer. One colleague said of Yates: “In all his endeavors, the hallmark of John Yavis’ leadership has always been that of quiet dignity, universal courtesy and the highest integrity.”
The American Inns of Court Foundation, America’s oldest, largest and fastest growing mentoring organization, presents Professionalism Awards at participating circuits nationwide. The awards are underwritten in part by Thomson-West Group.
