Each year, your Student Bar Association (SBA) recognizes two organizations, a small organization and a large organization, on campus for their outstanding service to our law school and to the community through the Mayer S. Leiter Awards. The awards are announced and presented in our annual Barristers Ball and consists of plaques and cash awards to the organizations’ school accounts.

The Mayer S. Leiter Awards are given in honor of Mayer S. Leiter, who was and still is a symbol of service and extensive leadership in our law school. A few days after receiving his University of Miami J.D. degree on May 19, 2002, Mayer S. Leiter passed away. During his time at our law school, Mayer S. Leiter founded the Jewish Comparative Law Society. "He was a true 'ner le'hair'" (candle which helps others to shine) - as described in his Torah Scroll Completion Ceremony Program. Because of his incredible and devout service to our school, the SBA has honored him by naming these service awards after him.

In order to win these awards, each organization must fill out and submit the form below and turn in this form to the H.O.P.E. Public Interest Resource Center, located in the Dean of Students Office. H.O.P.E. will be tracking down the amount of service that each organization does throughout the year, the type of service, the amount of hours and the number of people involved in the service, and the benefiting party of this service. These forms are available at the SBA Office. Please review the information regarding logging community service and pro bono hours and then go ahead and complete the forms. The service can be for the law school or for the community. Remember to include service performed by individuals in your organization for the community and for the law school. Your organization and the individual student will get credit for all of their hard work. The forms are self-explanatory, but if you have any questions you can contact the SBA Secretary, William Dobbins, at sba_secretary@law.miami.edu or umhope@law.miami.edu.

Please note that some of the service performed may also be counted towards other types of law school recognition, including HOPE recognition and your transcript, so please be sure to fill out the forms completely and promptly.

Because the Mayer S. Leiter awards will be presented in this year's Barristers Ball on April 3, 2003, these forms need to be submitted to the H.O.P.E. Public Interest Resource Center by Friday, March 12, 2003 in order to have enough time to have all the hours compiled for the Barristers Ball. (But please note that you should update H.O.P.E. with any hours performed after March to be considered for other forms of recognition!)

I encourage all the organizations to get involved in our law school and community as much as possible. Not so much for the "award," but more for the meaning behind the award. Mayer S. Leiter was a great example of leadership, character, and determination for all of us and in honor of his service, lets keep his spirit alive!