DC Affordable Law Firm’s Rebecca Goldfrank Receives Elliott Milstein Award for Professional Excellence

WASHINGTON, DC — Rebecca Goldfrank, Legal Director for DC Affordable Law Firm, has been honored as the 2022 recipient of the Elliott Milstein Award for Professional Excellence from her alma mater, American University Washington College of Law.

The Milstein award, in honor of Professor Emeritus Elliott Milstein, is bestowed annually upon an alumnus/a of the WCL Clinical Program whose lawyering skills and values embody the highest standards of the profession, and whose career reflects core principles of the Clinical Program, including client-centeredness, reflective lawyering, seeking justice, and a commitment to training law students and junior lawyers.

“Profound dedication to public interest law, client-centered lawyering, and teaching junior attorneys are the hallmarks of this prestigious award and the very reasons Rebecca is most deserving of this recognition,” says DCALF’s Executive Director Gabby Mulnick Majewski. “She is a natural teacher who inspires the new and rising attorneys she teaches every day at DC Affordable Law Firm, imparting gentle wisdom from her seventeen-plus years of practice. We are elated for Rebecca and lucky to call her a colleague and friend.”

Goldfrank has dedicated her entire professional career to the pursuit of justice for families and individuals from low-income households navigating inequitable systems and systemic societal oppressions.

For more than eighteen years, she has exuded a deep commitment to social justice and public service, beginning her career working for a range of legal services organizations in the District, including Children’s Law Center, the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition, Washington Council of Lawyers, and now, DC Affordable Law Firm. She has worn many hats as a lawyer and leader and worked tirelessly to teach, train, and inspire hundreds of new and rising attorneys in various capacities.

Goldfrank began her tenure at DC Affordable Law Firm in August 2021 as their first full-time Legal Director, where she oversees and nurtures the work of their 18-person legal team, supports their race equity initiatives, and helps to foster new approaches to enhance the organization’s impact and evolution. She also continues to inspire and shape the careers of young, rising social justice warriors through her work with DCALF’s attorney fellows.

Goldfrank continues to be an active, inspiring member of the DC legal community. She serves as a Complaint Examiner with the DC Office of Police Complaints, where she makes determinations regarding allegations of police misconduct. Until February 2020, she staffed the DC Bar Pro Bono Center’s monthly Saturday Advice and Referral Clinic, which provides free legal advice on any civil legal matter. She has also served as an Adjunct Professor at WCL, teaching an externship course to aspiring public interest servants. Through her current role at DCALF and her volunteer work, she remains committed to eliminating barriers to service and ensuring all persons have equitable access to high-quality representation.

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DC Affordable Law Firm is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide high-quality, affordable legal services to DC Residents with unmet legal needs who do not qualify for free legal aid and are unable to pay prevailing legal rates. Learn more and get involved at www.dcaffordablelaw.org.