SCOTUSblog Receives 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award

Street Law, Inc. presented its 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award to SCOTUSblog on April 17, 2013, in Washington, DC. Tom Goldstein, SCOTUSblog’s co-founder and publisher and partner at Goldstein & Russell, accepted the award on behalf of the blog.

Street Law’s Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes and celebrates individuals (and websites!) who have dedicated their careers to empowering others through education about law, democracy, and human rights. Since its conception in 2002, SCOTUSblog has made the U.S. Supreme Court accessible to millions of people and explained the Court’s impact on the lives of Americans in ways that everyday people can understand.

SCOTUSblog provides in-depth information about every case that is argued at the Supreme Court—from the certiorari process to the briefs to the arguments to the decision. The blog’s editorial staff, composed of journalists, lawyers, law professors, and law students, provides analysis and commentary on important Court happenings. They live blog and live tweet from decisions and oral arguments, host online forums, and publish a round-up of reporting about the Court in other media. In addition, they track a wealth of statistics about the Court and issue reports every year that examine the Court’s work during that term.

All of this information provides an invaluable resource to social studies teachers across the country who teach about the Court and its cases.

“They help to make this important, but often mysterious and misunderstood, institution accessible and understandable. That’s an important tool in teaching about our democracy,” says Lee Arbetman, Street Law’s executive director. “They manage to explain complex issues in a clear way, and their work has had a significant impact on education about the Supreme Court.”

In addition to the rich content provided on the blog, SCOTUSblog helps enhance Street Law’s professional development programs for teaching about the Supreme Court. Each year at the Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers, participating educators benefit from a number of SCOTUSblog contributors who volunteer as featured speakers and resource experts—including Reporter Lyle Denniston, Publisher Tom Goldstein, and Editor Amy Howe.

SCOTUSblog received the 2010 American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award for fostering the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system, the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary by the American Judges Association, and was inducted into the American Bar Association Blawg 100 Hall of Fame in 2012.