Bridget Mayer Briggs Presented with Blank Rome’s Edwin P. Rome Pro Bono Achievement Award
Blank Rome LLP is pleased to announce that partner Bridget Mayer Briggs was presented with the firm’s annual Edwin P. Rome Pro Bono Achievement Award in recognition of her personal commitment to, and leadership in, pro bono work on behalf of people with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, children in foster care, and the wrongfully convicted. Named in honor of one of Blank Rome’s founding partners, the Edwin P. Rome Pro Bono Achievement Award was created in 2004 to recognize outstanding performance and a demonstrated commitment to pro bono legal service each year.
An active and important member of the firm’s Philadelphia Pro Bono Coordinating Committee, Bridget has been an extremely dedicated and diligent pro bono volunteer and leader throughout her career at Blank Rome. She is a member of the board of directors of the Homeless Advocacy Project, where she has successfully represented clients with severe mental health issues in appealing denials of social security disability benefits. She also volunteers as a guardian ad litem to represent abused and neglected children through the Support Center for Child Advocates.
Notably, Bridget was a part of a Blank Rome team that secured a criminal record expungement on behalf of Vincent Moto, a Philadelphia man who spent more than 10 years in prison for a crime that he did not commit, and who was the first person in Pennsylvania to ever be exonerated on the basis of after-acquired DNA evidence. Despite his conviction being overturned in 1996 due to after-acquired DNA evidence, the Philadelphia District Attorney would not agree to expunge his criminal record. The Blank Rome team became involved to seek an expungement of Mr. Moto’s record and, on February 16, 2021, the court finally agreed to grant the expungement. So, nearly 35 years after his arrest, Mr. Moto is now finally free of his false conviction, and Bridget was a huge part of the reason that Mr. Moto received justice in this case.
Please take a few minutes to watch the video below highlighting why Bridget is such a deserving recipient of this award.