Anthony L. Ricco, Esquire, to Receive American Inns of Court's Professionalism Award for the Second Circuit.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Anthony L. Ricco, Esquire, a well known defense attorney in the New York City criminal justice community, has been selected to receive the American Inns of Court's 2008 Professionalism Award for the Second Circuit. The award will be presented in a special ceremony at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in New York City, on Wednesday, September 24 at 4:00 p.m.

The Second Circuit Professionalism Award honors a quintessential mentor -- and as such, embodies the fundamental values of the profession to which the American Inns of Court is dedicated. The honoree is a senior lawyer, who for a generation or more has taught, supervised, and mentored developing practitioners in government, private practice, or public service, by word and by example. He or she is a "lawyer's lawyer" -- a master of the craft -- whose life and work reflect civility, competence and ethical behavior. The Second Circuit Award seeks in particular to honor the unsung, unheralded mentor whose recognition by peers in the legal profession is overdue. The focus this year was on New York, awards having been made in previous years to lawyers in Connecticut and Vermont. Candidates are drawn from open nominations and selected by a panel of representatives from both the federal courts in the Second Circuit and the American Inns of Court Foundation.

Mr. Ricco earned a Malcom X scholarship to Adelphi University. He then received a J.D. from Northeastern University in Boston. After clerking for a civil court judge and then working for the New York State Assembly Banking Committee, he began a solo practice. In a practice that has spanned nearly 27 years, Mr. Ricco has represented numerous unpopular and notorious defendants, including capital defendants. However, what truly sets Mr. Ricco apart is his mentoring, which is rooted in part in his deep commitment to the Harlem community in which he has lived his entire life. Mr. Ricco has always been acutely aware of the challenges that African-Americans and other minorities have faced over the years. He mentors not just lawyers, but others as well, including youngsters confronted with difficult choices in life.

Mr. Ricco has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to fostering excellence in young attorneys. He served for many years as a volunteer on the Central Screening Committee, First Department, the committee that oversees the quality of assigned counsel representation of the indigent in the state courts in New York City. He actively participates as a member of the Peer Review Committee of the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the Southern District of New York. Recently, he helped develop a mentoring program to increase and diversify the pool of applicants for that federal court's Criminal Justice Act Panel. On the national level, Mr. Ricco is the representative of the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the Eastern District of New York to the Judiciary's Defender Services program. In that capacity, he has mentored less experienced death penalty lawyers and panel attorney representatives around the country, and has actively and persuasively assisted in the Judiciary's efforts to obtain from Congress the funding needed to ensure that competent, independent counsel are provided for indigent defendants in all federal courts. Additionally, under his volunteer presidency of the New York Criminal Bar Association, a mentoring program was initiated that encourages second-seating and pairing of experienced and less experienced trial lawyers.

The American Inns of Court Foundation, America's oldest, largest and fastest growing mentoring organization, presents Professionalism Awards at participating circuits nationwide. The awards are underwritten in part by Thomson-Reuters.