Ezell wins Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award.

You could say that Katherine Ezell's pro bono spirit was sparked when she was only 7 years old and, along with her friends, founded the Good Deed Club. Saving money earned for doing chores, they would buy clothes and secretly make sure they were given to needy children.

Fifty-two years later, Miami attorney Ezell stood in a packed courtroom at the Florida Supreme Court to receive what Chief Justice Barbara Pariente called the "Academy Awards of the legal profession"--the Tobias Simon Pro Bone Service Award.

In accepting the award, Ezell thanked a lot of people, including her parents for teaching by example about community service, her Girl Scout leader for showing her the satisfaction of trying to do a good deed every day, and her law firm Podhurst Orseck, P.A., for indulging her quest to do pro bone work.

"Most of my pro bone cases have had to do with children who are stuck in the quagmire of our dependency system," Ezell said. "I agree with Marian Wright Edleman [founder of the Children's Defense Fund] who said, 'We don't have a child to waste. Any nation that will allow its children to be the poorest of its citizens is spiritually impoverished.'

"And Sen. Robert Kennedy reminded us: 'If a free society cannot help those who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.'

"I am not a visionary, like these leaders. I am a plodder, just doing what I do, case by case and child by child. But I have learned more about life and the power of the law through these cases than through a hundred CLE courses," Ezell said.

Chief Justice Pariente said Ezell has handled "some of our most heart-wrenching cases.... If I had one word to summarize the focus of her pro bono career, that word would be 'children.'"

In one case, Ezell devoted more than 500 hours to represent two young sisters who survived a nightmarish childhood. The oldest child, then 4, witnessed quadruple murders, including torture.

After a long time, Ezell said, they were able to terminate the mother's parental rights, and the children have a happy home now, and the 4-year-old is almost an adult.

"What I found remarkable is that not only has she worked on individual cases, but she has been able to foster unique collaborative partnerships with parties, family members, and agencies, resulting in the thoughtful, realistic, and long-term resolution in even the most Contentious cases," Pariente said. "To me, that is a sign of a great lawyer."

The great lawyer who is the namesake of the highest...