Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (CLASI) is pleased to announce that CLASI attorney Marissa Band has received the 2024 David Lynch Award from the University of Delaware’s Center for Disabilities Studies (CDS), which works to enhance the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families through education, advocacy, service, and research.
Marissa received the award on December 20, 2024, in recognition of her “stellar commitment to, and engagement with, the disability community and CDS.” The award was established in 2016 in memory of self-advocate David Lynch, who served on the CDS Community Advisory Council and its executive committee.
Marissa has been a passionate and effective advocate for Delawareans with disabilities since joining CLASI as a staff attorney in 2008. She currently serves as Project Director of our Disabilities Law Program (DLP), which is Delaware’s designated Protection & Advocacy system for people with disabilities.
She oversees the DLP, which conducts systemic advocacy efforts including impact litigation and educating policymakers, as well as individual case advocacy and monitoring and investigating programs providing services to people with disabilities, in facilities and in the community, to ensure that they are protected from abuse, neglect, and other violations of their legal rights.
Marissa has served on numerous disability-related task forces and advisory councils, currently sitting on the Center for Disabilities Studies Community Advisory Council, the Delaware Division of Developmental Disabilities Services Advisory Council, the Delaware State Council for Persons with Disabilities, and the Delaware Developmental Disabilities Council, among others.
She also spearheads collaboration with organizational partners statewide, and is committed to further engaging the Delaware disability community in all aspects of the DLP’s work. (Learn more about Marissa and the DLP here.)
Congratulations to Marissa on this well-deserved honor!
