Local attorney Jason Cafarella recently received the Hon. Michael F. Dillon Award for his work on behalf of children.
Each year the Fourth Judicial Department selects six Attorneys For Children — two each from the Fifth, Seventh and Eighth districts — to receive the award.
Cafarella is one of the Eighth District awardees. In addition to serving as an Attorney for Children, Cafarella is a firefighter with Niagara Falls Fire Department. He also served as a deputy Lockport city attorney in Michelle Roman’s administration.
This year’s Dillon awards were presented by Hon. Gerald J. Whalen, presiding justice of the state Appellate Division, Fourth Department.
Of Cafarella, Whalen said, he’s “a dedicated AFC … it is very clear that he has a real rapport with his clients. His clients trust him and genuinely like him. … (he) advocates for his clients even when doing so is unpopular. … He is always on time, always prepared, always impeccably dressed though not always in what you would consider a lawyer’s suit. (He) once … came to court in his full firefighter gear.”
There are 522 lawyers in the Fourth Judicial Department doing work on behalf of children.
Cafarella was nominated by state Supreme Court justices Paula Feroleto and Frank Caruso, Niagara County Family Court Judge Erin DeLabio and Niagara County Court Judge Caroline Wojtaszek.
Attorney Laura Miskell, former Lockport city attorney who received the Dillon award herself in 2015, said of Cafarella’s achievement, “It’s pretty awesome. It was a nice thing to read.”
Dillon, a past state Supreme Court Justice and Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, advocated for the Attorney For Children panel that represents children.
“(Dillon) championed education of the Attorney For Children. He wanted to make sure that the panel selected to represent the children were able to do this. That they were educated, that there were seminars and that they were able to do the job they came to do,” Whalen observed. “Because it is a unique job. A very challenging job. A very emotional job.”