Franklin M. Lee has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Practitioner of the Year Award by the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
Mr. Lee is a native of Maryland. He received his Juris Doctorate in 1980 from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and served as President of the University of Maryland BLSA Chapter during 1979-1980. Before entering private practice, he served for six years as antitrust litigation counsel at the Federal Trade Commission, and for over fifteen years as Chief Counsel to the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. ("MBELDEF"). As MBELDEF’s Chief Counsel, he provided advice to numerous governmental entities on drafting minority business and disadvantaged business enterprise programs, and on defending those programs against constitutional challenges.
BLSA, founded in 1967, is a national organization with chapters at virtually every law school in the country. The University of Maryland chapter, one of the first and one of the largest, actively recruits black and other minority law students, assists them with their studies while in law school, and prepares them for the bar and, ultimately, the practice of law.