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Defender training center receives honor

By Bill Rankin
Sept 26, 2011

The Atlanta-based Southern Defender Training Center has been given the Emil Gumpert Award and $50,000 for its work training lawyers to represent indigent defendants across the South.

The American College of Trial Lawyers, which presented the award, hopes the cash prize will help cement the training center as "a free-standing nonprofit organization that changes lives, improves society and elevates the standards of the administration of justice," Michael Cooper, the group's president, said in a Sept. 22 letter to the center's founder, Jon Rapping.

About the Author

Bill Rankin has been an AJC reporter for more than 30 years. His father, Jim Rankin, worked as an editor for the newspaper for 26 years, retiring in 1986. Bill has primarily covered the state’s court system, doing all he can do to keep the scales of justice on an even keel. Since 2015, he has been the host of the newspaper’s Breakdown podcast.

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