Past Awardees: Deb Elkins Volunteer of the Year Award
The Deb Elkins Volunteer of the Year Award commemorates Deb Elkins, who devotedly volunteered as a reading tutor with the Lawyers for Literacy program for 25 years. Deb spent 34 years as a paralegal with Michael McGrath and another 25 years with Mesch, Clark, and Rothschild where she always served her clients and confidants well. The Pima County Bar Foundation created the award in 2022 to honor Deb and to recognize outstanding individuals who volunteer with any of PCBF's diverse programs that depend on volunteer efforts for their success. Award recipients can be lawyer or non-lawyer PCBA members who demonstrate commitment, service, creativity, and leadership in their volunteer roles.
2022 Stanlee West-Watt
Stanlee West-Watt is the kind of volunteer who never seeks recognition but works quietly to ensure the success of whatever effort she engages in. Stanlee is an adjunct faculty in the Pima Community College's ABA-accredited Paralegal Program, teaching advanced classes in family law, criminal law and procedure, and bankruptcy law and procedure. The National Association of Women Lawyers recognized her as its Outstanding Woman Attorney, and she has also been recognized as a Champion for Children by Voices for Children. Stanlee served as a Director of the Pima County Bar Association and was a founding Trustee of the Pima County Bar Foundation.
Stanlee has been generous with not only her impressive legal abilities and her time, but also with her financial support of numerous organizations and activities that benefit both the legal community and the greater community of Southern Arizona. Stanlee also leverages her contributions by encouraging the volunteer activities of members of her firm, who credit her with their inspiration and success.
In explaining her attitude toward volunteering, Stanlee has said: “I’ve had plenty of people tell me you can’t save the world, but just helping one person can be meaningful.” Stanlee’s quiet, and often anonymous, volunteering has improved the lives of a great many in our community.
2023 Michael Aaron
Michael Aaron exemplifies all criteria the Deb Elkins Award seeks to recognize: he is a volunteer who makes a significant contribution through his commitment, service, creativity and leadership. Whether it is spearheading PCBF’s Stuffed Animal Campaign, leading or volunteering in a PCBF clinic, or organizing and presenting CLE programs, Michael can be counted on not only to raise his hand, but to take the initiative. No matter what the program, he always comes up with new ideas, participates whole-heartedly, and recruits others to join with him to make it successful.
Michael has served as President of both the Pima County Bar Association’s Board of Directors and the Pima County Bar Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He has taken leadership roles in both the Family Law Sections of the State Bar and PCBA and served on the task force that rewrote the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure. He has been active in the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, serving as President of the Arizona Chapter.
Michael has been instrumental in many of PCBF’s ongoing programs, such as its “Stuffed Animal Campaign,” where he enhanced and expanded the idea, raised the money, and delivered the stuffed animals and comic books to the guardian and juvenile courtrooms. The concept was simple – make children (and sometimes incapacitated adults) who are afraid of the courtroom more comfortable by allowing them to pick out a stuffed animal or comic book to help comfort them in court. Michael was also instrumental in launching a collaborative CLE sponsored by PCBF, Step Up to Justice and Southern Arizona Legal Aid.
As Michael explains, “I start each day with appreciation for what I have. I am blessed to be able to provide and give back.”
Stanlee West-Watt is the kind of volunteer who never seeks recognition but works quietly to ensure the success of whatever effort she engages in. Stanlee is an adjunct faculty in the Pima Community College's ABA-accredited Paralegal Program, teaching advanced classes in family law, criminal law and procedure, and bankruptcy law and procedure. The National Association of Women Lawyers recognized her as its Outstanding Woman Attorney, and she has also been recognized as a Champion for Children by Voices for Children. Stanlee served as a Director of the Pima County Bar Association and was a founding Trustee of the Pima County Bar Foundation.
Stanlee has been generous with not only her impressive legal abilities and her time, but also with her financial support of numerous organizations and activities that benefit both the legal community and the greater community of Southern Arizona. Stanlee also leverages her contributions by encouraging the volunteer activities of members of her firm, who credit her with their inspiration and success.
In explaining her attitude toward volunteering, Stanlee has said: “I’ve had plenty of people tell me you can’t save the world, but just helping one person can be meaningful.” Stanlee’s quiet, and often anonymous, volunteering has improved the lives of a great many in our community.
2023 Michael Aaron
Michael Aaron exemplifies all criteria the Deb Elkins Award seeks to recognize: he is a volunteer who makes a significant contribution through his commitment, service, creativity and leadership. Whether it is spearheading PCBF’s Stuffed Animal Campaign, leading or volunteering in a PCBF clinic, or organizing and presenting CLE programs, Michael can be counted on not only to raise his hand, but to take the initiative. No matter what the program, he always comes up with new ideas, participates whole-heartedly, and recruits others to join with him to make it successful.
Michael has served as President of both the Pima County Bar Association’s Board of Directors and the Pima County Bar Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He has taken leadership roles in both the Family Law Sections of the State Bar and PCBA and served on the task force that rewrote the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure. He has been active in the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, serving as President of the Arizona Chapter.
Michael has been instrumental in many of PCBF’s ongoing programs, such as its “Stuffed Animal Campaign,” where he enhanced and expanded the idea, raised the money, and delivered the stuffed animals and comic books to the guardian and juvenile courtrooms. The concept was simple – make children (and sometimes incapacitated adults) who are afraid of the courtroom more comfortable by allowing them to pick out a stuffed animal or comic book to help comfort them in court. Michael was also instrumental in launching a collaborative CLE sponsored by PCBF, Step Up to Justice and Southern Arizona Legal Aid.
As Michael explains, “I start each day with appreciation for what I have. I am blessed to be able to provide and give back.”
2024 Beth Smith
PCBF is very pleased to present its 2024 Deb Elkin Award to Beth Smith. Beth's involvement with PCBF's guardian and conservator presentations began in June 2014 when she, together with attorneys Ryan Thomsen and Robert Fleming and UA law professor Kenney Hegland, conceived a plan to address the acute need for pro bono assistance to community members seeking guardianship for loved ones. They began with presentations to presentations to unrepresented petitioners at Pima Council on Aging for the general community and at Community Partnership of Southern Arizona for mental health professionals and providers.
When those presentations stimulated a demand for further guardian and conservatorship assistance, PCBA took the program under its wing and created a Guardian/Conservator (G/C) Forms Committee to create legal forms and instructions that were easier to understand and use. Beth Smith, with Robert Fleming, gave the first adult G/C presentation for PCBA in October 2015. The presentations have been held regularly since then and continue as a program of the PCBF. And Beth Smith is still involved!
Beth's invaluable and continuing contributions to PCBF's community G/C programs deserve special recognition. Congratulations, and many thanks, to Beth Smith, the 2024 Deb Elkins Volunteer of the Year!