The Minoru Yasui Justice Award is given to an Oregon Law graduate, faculty member, or friend of Oregon Law whose commitment to advancing the cause of justice on behalf of underrepresented communities brings honor to the school. The award is named in recognition of Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and Oregon Law Alumnus, Minoru Yasui.
2024 Award Recipient:
Judge Nan Waller, JD '79
Judge Nan Waller, JD ‘79, was appointed to the Multnomah County Circuit Court bench in 2001. She served as Presiding Judge for six years and before that as Chief Family Court Judge. She currently is the Mental Health Court Judge and manages the competency docket for the court.
Judge Waller has served on numerous work groups and committees to improve the justice system. She was one of four Executive Sponsor’s for Oregon eCourt. Judge Waller was a leader in the planning for a new central courthouse in Multnomah County and was on Governor Brown’s Children’s Cabinet.
Judge Waller currently co-chairs the Chief Justice’s Behavioral Health Advisory Council. Judge Waller served as a member of the Criminal Justice Workgroup of the National Judicial Task Force to Examine State Courts’ Response to Mental Illness and currently serves on CCJ/COSA Behavioral Health Committee Competency Workgroup. Judge Waller serves on the Board of Lines for Life, a non-profit dedicated to preventing substance abuse and suicide and promoting mental health. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
Judge Waller has received numerous awards for her work on the bench and in the community including the National CASA Judge of the Year award, the Classroom Law Project’s Legal Citizen of the Year award, NAMI Oregon’s Gordon and Sharon Smith New Freedom Award, the Frohnmayer Award for Public Service, the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, and the FORA Health Spirit of Recovery Advocacy Award. She received her BA from Stanford University.
Past Recipients
2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017
2023: Lisa Lawrence Brody, BA ‘92 & JD ‘95
Lisa Brody, a proud Double Duck, is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg, a private foundation working to support racial equity and health equity in Pinellas County, Florida. Before joining the Foundation team, she served as the Assistant Deputy Director and Managing Attorney for the St. Petersburg Office of Bay Area Legal Services, Inc., the largest nonprofit public-interest law firm in the Tampa Bay Area. With an extensive background in housing law, Brody has dedicated her entire legal career to providing access to justice and legal education. For 29 years as an attorney, she has advocated for tenant rights in public, federally subsidized, and private housing to ensure they have access to safe and affordable housing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lisa remained on the front lines to ensure that low- income and marginalized communities were able to stay in their homes.
Brody is a member of the Florida Bar, St. Petersburg Bar and Fred G. Minnis Bar Associations. She presently serves on the Bar’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Since 2013, Brody has served as an Adjunct Professor in the Paralegal Studies Program at St. Petersburg College. Brody is very active in her local community. She currently serves as the vice chair of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic. She has also served on the Pinellas Opportunity Council, the Youth Development Foundation of Pinellas Inc., the Bayfront Hospital Board of Trustees, Pinellas Community Foundation, and Clothes to Kids.Brody received Power Broker Magazine’s Silk Recognition for Service (2018), the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African-American History Museum’s First Lady in African-American History Recognition (2015), the Heroes Among Us Award from the St. Petersburg Bar Association (2010), the St. Petersburg Housing Authority Community Partner Award and the Florida Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance Legacy Award (2023).
Brody received her BA and JD from the University of Oregon. She has also earned a Certificate in Non-Profit Management from the University of Tampa. She is a life member of the University of Oregon Alumni Association and has served as the board secretary of the University of Oregon Black Alumni Network.
2022: Honorable Miranda Summer JD '07
In January 2022, Governor Kate Brown announced that she appointed Beaverton Municipal Court Judge Miranda Summer to the Washington County Circuit Court. Summer filled the Washington County vacancy created by Judge Ramon Pagan's recent elevation to the Oregon Court of Appeals. Her appointment was effective immediately.
Summer had served as a judge on the Beaverton Municipal Court, where she adjudicated criminal and traffic violation cases. She also had served as a pro tern judge on the Washington County Circuit Court and as an administrative law judge for the Office of Administrative Hearings. Previously, Summer practiced as a family law attorney, representing individuals in domestic relations and dependency cases. She earned her bachelor's from Regis University and her law degree from the University of Oregon.
In addition to her judicial experience and legal practice, Summer is involved in her community and the bar. Among other things, she currently serves on the boards of the Washington County Bar Association and the Oregon Minority Lawyers Association and has served as a member of the Oregon State Bar's Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
2021: Bruce Lamb, JD '84
Bruce Lamb has represented immigrants and refugees in immigration court for the past 35 years as a volunteer attorney for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. In 2011, Lamb joined the faculty at Highline College (the most diverse student body of any college campus in Washington) as a legal studies teacher. The diverse campus has allowed him to join the mission of making the legal profession more representative of the broad society it serves.
2021: Benjamin Beijing Wang, JD '98
Benjamin Beijing Wang has practiced immigration law for more than 20 years and has personally represented hundreds of immigrants coming from different regions of the world. In 2017, Wang became an immigration law professor here at the UO Law School. Through his teaching, he hopes to help future lawyers gain knowledge of US immigration laws, recognize the systemic injustice embedded in the US immigration system, and start thinking about taking actions to make our laws just and fair to all.
2020: Suzanne McCormick, JD '97
Suzanne McCormick graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1997. During law school, she was co-director of the Oregon Law Students Public Interest Fund (OLSPIF).
Since graduation, Suzanne has devoted her legal career to affording security and stability to vulnerable populations. After laX+Modifiersenvelope-stats--show__borderw school, she worked as a staff attorney at Public Counsel advocating for children’s and immigrants' rights. Suzanne, Executive Director, founded the Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC), a nonprofit organization providing services to underrepresented immigrants in California and Nevada in 2004. She started ICWC in Los Angeles and has expanded services to San Francisco, San Diego, and Las Vegas communities.
She has established ICWC as one of the leading legal service agencies that provides immigration relief options for survivors of trauma. Using US federal legislation, including the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), ICWC represents survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and sexual assault. ICWC’s overall goal is to help these immigrants permanently escape abusive relationships, live in safety, and become self-sufficient. Suzanne works with and leads a team of over 40 attorneys and support staff to further ICWC’s mission. Under Suzanne’s direction, ICWC has served more than 45,000 individuals.
2019: Cory Smith, JD '00
Cory Smith has dedicated almost twenty years of his career to protecting the rights of vulnerable populations and individual rights through policy and advocacy. As the current Vice-President of Policy, Advocacy & Communications with Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) in Washington, DC he worked on behalf of unaccompanied children receive fair and appropriate treatment and due process while in the US immigration system. His commitment to advancing the cause of justice was seen through his past work as Senior Policy Counsel for Humanity United. Smith led the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST) coalition which led to the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2013 and secured nearly $100 million dollars in federal funding to combat modern day slavery. In his efforts to fight for underrepresented people, Smith led a national Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform which was comprised of over 100 immigrant rights, labor, civil rights, faith-based, and community rights organizations. Through his leadership and the coalition’s efforts, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S.2611) was passed by in the U.S. Senate. Smith, who is a member of the Washington State Bar, received his JD from Oregon Law and his BA from Florida State University.
2018: Jon Patterson '13
Jonathan Patterson is the Staff Attorney at Compassion & Choices, the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to improving care and expanding choice at the end of life. He provides consultation for a wide variety of legal matters, including the issues of unwanted medical treatment, medical aid in dying, and end of life decision-making. He is a frequent national speaker on available end-of-life options and empowering consumers to make healthcare decisions in line with their values.
A Wichita, Kan. native, Jon completed his undergraduate studies in political science and psychology at Hawai’i Pacific University in Honolulu, where he worked as an educator and youth and developmental disability counselor before moving to the Pacific Northwest to attend the University of Oregon School of Law. He is very active in the Oregon legal community, currently serving as Chair of the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion and Immediate Past-Chair of the Oregon State Bar Diversity Section. Jon is also the past-president of the Oregon chapter of the National Bar Association, Oregon’s membership organization for African-American attorneys, judges, law students, and supporters. He is a past recipient of the Oregon New Lawyers Division Advancing Diversity Award.
2017: Peggy Nagae
Peggy Nagae helped found the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and is serving as its president. As lead attorney for Minoru Yasui, she successfully overturned his conviction and championed his nomination for the Presidential Medal of Honor. In 2017, Peggy won the ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession Spirit of Excellence Award and the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon Voices of Change award.
Minoru Yasui's jail cell is now on permanent display at at the Japanese American Museum of Oregon.