Holy Cross attorney honored by Prelaw Club

Friday, Apr. 15, 2016

SALT LAKE CITY — Holy Cross Sr. Kathleen Moroney is the recipient of the 2016 Christine M. Durham Public Service Award from the Utah Valley University Prelaw Club.

Sr. Kathleen specializes in immigration law at Holy Cross Ministries in Salt Lake City, which also offers health and education programs to the underserved and the underinsured “to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ and in the spirit of the Sisters of the Holy Cross,” according to their mission statement.

Sr. Kathleen received the award at a dinner April 6. She said she was honored to be chosen for the award because the others who also were nominated “have done all this marvelous stuff, and here I am just trying to do my job.”

The finalists were Patrice Arent, a member of the Utah House of Representatives; David Dominguez, professor emeritus of Brigham Young University Law School; James Jardine of Ray Quinney & Nebeker Attorneys at Law; and Judge Anthony Terry, judge emeritus of Alpine and Highland cities.

Sr. Kathleen worked in corporate law for her religious order before she moved to Utah and contacted Adan Batar, director of Immigration and Refugee Resettlement at Catholic Community Services, about the need for legal services for immigrants in the state.

“The purpose of a law degree is to be able to put it at the service of others,” Sr. Kathleen said.

She still recalls the first clinic on immigration legal services she held. It was in Wendover, “and all I could do was write down as fast as I could what their questions were. And then I said, ‘I have to go home and do some research and I’ll get back to you.’ That’s how I learned a lot about immigration law, was from doing.” 

She also learned to speak Spanish to better serve her clients, she said.

During her presentation to the pre-law students at the awards dinner  at UVU, she told them not to be afraid to step out of their specialty areas to help others. 

In her presentation, Sr. Kathleen also touched on the services she provides to immigrants who are victims of domestic violence; this message particularly resonated with Eileen Doyle Crane, the UVU prelaw advisor who coordinates the award program.

Before presenting the award, Crane showed a video about the Sisters of the Holy Cross. Many of her students were unaware of the service given by women in Catholic religious orders, so “it was really great to be able to educate them about the contributions the nuns make all over the world,” Crane said.

The annual Christine M. Durham Public Service Award was first presented five years ago. Previous recipients have included Judge Durham and the Honorable Paul Cassell. The purpose of the award is to honor people who have served in the public sphere, using their skills beyond what is required to take care of their paying clients, Crane said. These men and women are excellent examples of attorneys who offer public service to others, she said, “and my students need to do that in the future as well.”