Erwin-Taylor Award

The Erwin-Taylor Award is the National College's highest honor. it recognizes a lifetime of accomplishments and contributions not only to the National College but to the entire defense community. The award is not given every year, but rather occasionally. The list of recipients represent some of the most accomplished and well-recognized DUI defense attorneys in the entire country.

The Erwin-Taylor Award was first called the Richard E. Erwin Lifetime Achievement Award. It was named after Richard E. Erwin, the author of the first text on defending DUIs. Richard Erwin published the first handbook on how to defend a DUI case in 1963. A public defender for most of his career, he had to create tools and strategies for fighting DUI cases. In 2004, the name changed to the Erwin-Taylor award to also honor Larry Taylor, who was instrumental in the formation of NCDD. Mr. Taylor also served as one of the first Deans of NCDD and continued to participate in the furtherance of educating defense attorneys nationwide. Although Mr. Taylor passed away in 2023, he established himself as one of the pre-eminent DUI defense lawyers in the entire nation. To this day, his treatise "Drunk Driving Defense" (Wolters Kluwer) co-authored with 2014 Erwin-Taylor recipient Steve Oberman, continues to be the premier treatise nationwide for anyone defending those accused of impaired driving.

Erwin-Taylor Award Recipients