PUBLISHED:April 03, 2012

Ross honored by N.C. Justice Center

Senior Lecturing Fellow Deborah K. Ross is being honored by the North Carolina Justice Center with its 2012 “Defender of Justice Award” in the area of legislative advocacy.

Currently in her fifth term representing Wake County in the N.C. General Assembly, Ross, a Democrat, is being honored for her dedication to increasing access to affordable housing and public transportation, protecting civil rights, and reforming North Carolina's tax system to make it more fair and transparent, according to the N.C. Justice Center’s website. She is among five individuals and organizations being honored at the Justice Center’s 14th annual Defenders of Justice Awards Ceremony and Dinner at Durham’s American Tobacco Campus on May 10.

The awards recognize contributions to the Justice Center’s broad mission of ending poverty in North Carolina and for facilitating specific improvements to the lives of poor and working families in the state.

At Duke Law, Ross teaches U.S. Legal Analysis, Research and Writing for International Students and in the N.C. Public Policy Integrated Externship program. In the last academic year she also was one of three faculty advisers to an ad-hoc seminar which engaged students in crafting provisions to reform Haitian laws pertaining to domestic violence and violence against women.

Ross is of counsel at Styers & Kemerait in Raleigh and a N.C. Dispute Resolution Commission certified mediator.

Clinical Professor Jane Wettach, director of Duke’s Children’s Law Clinic, received the Justice Center’s 2010 “Defender of Justice Award” in the area of litigation.