"The Ventura County Bar Association is privileged to award Vanessa Frank, the 2021 Ben E. Nordman Public Service Award, recognizing her leadership, dedication, and tangible impact furthering community justice in Ventura County. Frank is the quintessential community lawyer, a humble and tireless advocate for community-led solutions to the social harms our system of laws too often inflicts on the innocent. Her mission as a lawyer reflects this character: “To engage clients with their own power. To see them cast aside a layer of worry and concern and move forward to exercise their rights, to dream big and feel as though they have both feet on the ground and can move forward.” Empowering others to assert their rights and personhood in the face of a hostile system is not a simple task. It requires not only a fighting spirit, but also the heart of a healer and the mind of a teacher. Frank possesses these characteristics in spades."

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"The Ventura County Bar Association is proud to add the 2021 Ben E. Nordman Public Service Award to Vanessa Frank’s long list of recognitions. This is a welldeserved award to an attorney who will no doubt continue to improve the quality of the Ventura County Bar for as long as she blesses us with her presence." 

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Kate Wood, Member of Citations Editorial Board for VCBA and Attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance