A thousand hours and countless cases later, attorney Lewis Edelstein is being honored for his volunteer efforts.

Edelstein, 60, a solo practitioner in Garden City, will be the first to tell you he started working pro bono cases purely because he was "obligated to take one a year." But that's not why he logged more than 306 hours on nine pro bono cases in 2006, most involving child custody issues. It's also not the reason he volunteered for time-consuming matrimonial cases involving clients with serious mental problems.

Edelstein actually cares, and the New York Bar Association knows it. The attorney is one of 16 winners of the 2007 President's Pro Bono Service Award, including attorneys from 11 of the state's 12 judicial districts, two young lawyers (under age 36, or practicing law for less than 10 years), a large firm, two small- or mid-sized firms, two law students and a law school group.

Edelstein, honored as the top pro bono attorney in the 10th Judicial District that is Nassau and Suffolk counties, has logged more than 1,000 hours of volunteer legal work for the Nassau Volunteer Lawyers Project and Suffolk's Pro Bono Project since joining both in 1991. His pro-bono bottom line, he said, is looking out for "a class of individuals who are often times not given the attention they need during the course of a divorce - children."

"Ensuring that the children's interests are protected serves the better interests of society," Edelstein said. "A distressed child is a distressed adult, compounding the pressures just ordinary living brings upon all of us."

Edelstein - whose Stewart Avenue practice focuses on family matters including divorce, custody, child support, adoptions and domestic violence - said he is "gratified and honored that the bar association would choose to honor me in this fashion."

Other winners of the 2007 President's Pro Bono Service Award include Jodie L. Ryan of Phillips, Lytle, Hitchcock, Blaine and Huber LLP, who won for the 7th Judicial District (Rochester). Ryan spent more than 125 hours of pro bono time helping a woman sue real estate agents, a home seller and the attorneys who represented her at closing on a house that turned out to have a nonfunctioning septic system, toxic mold and water-quality issues, according to the bar association. Phillips Lytle has seven offices in New York, including one in Garden City.

Other awards went to attorneys and firms who represented prisoners in the state's jails who needed mental health care, victims of the June and November floods in central New York and asylum-seekers who have fled persecution in their home countries.

The bar association presented the awards Monday at the State Bar Center in Albany. A complete list of winners is available at www.nysba.org.