Virginia State Bar names young lawyer of the year

Published May 24, 2016 by Jessica Sabbath

The Virginia State Bar Lawyers Conference has named Giovanni Di Maggio its 2015 R. Edwin Burnette Jr. Young Lawyer of the Year.

The award recognizes a young lawyer who demonstrates service to the conference, the legal profession and the community.

Di Maggio, a judicial law clerk at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, co-chairs the state bar’s Immigrant Outreach Committee.

Di Maggio, who graduated from Colgate University in 2008 and Northeastern University School of Law in 2012, co-chairs the conference’s Immigrant Outreach Committee. He has helped the committee grow its legal education seminars and recruited local and national leaders in the immigrant community to serve as panelists and help develop education material.

He also has promoted the growth of the committee’s Foreign Language Attorney Database, designed to assist the public in finding Virginia-licensed attorneys who can speak their language.

In 2015, Di Maggio launched the committee’s annual Pro Bono CLE Series, a program that supports immigration pro bono work among Virginia attorneys. Additionally, he and his co-chair launched a Naturalization Clinic program, which connects Virginia attorneys to naturalization clinics hosted by a Virginia-based, non-profit immigrant services provider.