In 2024, we presented Claire Richards with the Ada Sawyer Award. The following speech was given by Claire:

By end of 1880s, New York City was in crisis.  Raw sewage flowed through its streets, garbage clogged its roads and shipping channels.  Its roads were knee deep in animal carcasses, excrement, and trash of all descriptions.  Travelers could smell the city from six miles away.  Yellow fever and typhoid were rampant.  Infant mortality approached 65% and overall mortality was on par with that of medieval London.

In the 1890’s, New York’s municipal government made a fateful decision:  to form a sanitation department to collect New York’s garbage.

Almost immediately, the cobblestone roads reappeared, traffic returned to streets and shipping channels.  Infectious disease declined and life expectancy rose dramatically.

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More recently, state policymakers noticed that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”) benefits were running out before the end of the month.  This was causing beneficiaries to go hungry, with a resulting decline in their children’s school attendance.

SNAP benefits are typically loaded onto EBT cards at the beginning of the month. Government officials observed that local stores where beneficiaries shopped were raising their prices at the beginning of the month.

State policymakers could not change the amount of SNAP benefits, but they experimented with loading up EBT cards on a rolling basis or transferring benefits more than once a month.  These small changes in SNAP distribution methodology decreased hunger and increased school attendance.

As these examples demonstrate, the actions of government policymakers – whether large scale programs or small technical changes – can make a profound difference in the lives of the people they serve.

I am not a policy maker.  I am, however, a proud member of the State’s legal workforce.

And to misquote an old TV commercial: “we do not make the policy; we make the policy better.”

State’s lawyers, many of whom serve for decades and are expert in their fields, ensure that state policies are legal, clear, consistent and rationale.

Along the way, they act as historians, guides, counselors, brakemen and defenders.  They issue storm warnings, empower their clients, and lay down guard rails.  They are careful readers and grammar cops.  They are escape artists and clean up specialists.

I have served 5 Governors in this capacity – 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats and an Independent. 

Our small office gives legal advice to these Governors, their staff and cabinet on an extraordinary array of topics from separation of powers to the death penalty.  We defend and prosecute cases on the Governor’s behalf in state and federal courts.  We read every piece of legislation that comes to the Governor’s desk and prepare veto and signature messages.  We testify before committees of the General Assembly and Congress.  During COVID, we drafted hundreds of Executive Orders that affected the life and work of every Rhode Islander.  We recruit judicial candidates and help with the selection process.  We handle personnel matters, draft agreements, discipline notaries, issue railroad police commissions and answer questions big and small all day, every day.

This is a job that has both sustained and consumed me.  And I have loved every minute of it.

Ada Sawyer practiced law for an astonishing 63 years.  Not only was she the first woman to practice law in Rhode Island, she also demonstrated to women who came after her that the practice could be more than a job – it could be a life’s work.  Her legacy is on full display in the careers of other Ada Sawyer recipients like Alice Gibney, Maureen McKenna Goldberg and Lynette Labinger.  It is also an example to young lawyers like Andrea Shea, Kate Pirraglia and Kate Miller.

Ada Sawyer’s life is also an important reminder that none of us can do it alone.  Ada Sawyer’s career was kickstarted by Percy Gardner, a lawyer who hired her as his secretary, mentored her, believed in her, signed her up for the bar as “A. Sawyer” and welcomed her as a partner in a law firm they named “Gardner & Sawyer.”

Joe Larisa and Governor Lincoln Almond were my Percy Gardners.

The many colleagues who take my calls for help, who answer my questions about areas of the law I don’t know anything about, and who indulge me in brainstorming sessions – they are my Percy Gardners.

Most of all, my partner Mitch and our three daughters, Maddy, Julia and Olivia who have supported me in every way – you are my Percy Gardners.

I want to thank Denise Aiken, Lisa Kresge, Etie-Lee Schaub and all of the members of the Rhode Island Women’s Bar Association for keeping the memory of Ada Sawyer alive, for teaching us about her and for honoring me with an award in her name.