The state’s district attorneys today honored a West Roxbury man with an award for victim services named after a former DA, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said.

Michael Coffey, who recently observed his 25th year as a Suffolk County victim-witness advocate, was awarded the Gerard D. Downing Advocate of the Year Award at the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association annual meeting in Worcester.

Coffey began his career as a Suffolk County victim advocate in 1985, shortly after the Victim’s Bill of Rights was signed into Massachusetts law and at a time when “there was no roadmap or precedent for the responsibilities he was assuming,” Conley said.

“Michael has been a shoulder for countless men, women and children to lean upon in a time of crisis,” Conley said, recalling a case in which Coffey painstakingly reviewed flashcards with phrases in English and Khmer so that he could better meet the needs of a client, even though the office would provide an interpreter.

“Michael has transcended bounds of age, race, class, ethnicity, and grief with kindness, compassion, spirituality, and fractured foreign languages,” Conley said during introductory remarks at today’s ceremony.

Upon accepting the award, Coffey thanked Conley, who was the first prosecutor he watched in court when he started as an advocate 25 years ago.

“I was recently with a woman whose daughter, Emily, was murdered years ago,” Coffey said. “The case had come up on appeal. Emily’s mother told us that Dan had been the assistant DA assigned to her case. She told us how safe and protected Dan made her family feel …. On behalf of myself and my family, who live in Suffolk County, I want to thank you, Dan, for keeping us safe and protected.”

Coffey also had kind words for his supervisor, Kara Hayes, who oversees Conley’s Victim-Witness Assistance Program.

“This field can be a rocky one to work in,” he said. “Kara hasn’t just helped me push the plow – she’s shown me the treasures it unearths.”

Coffey also honored Gerald Downing, the former Berkshire County DA for whom the award is named. Coffey said he had never met Downing but was “humbled” at receiving an award named after a man remembered for his kindness and compassion.

“Like a sailor at night steers his ship by the stars he’ll never touch, I’ll always use Gerry Downing’s love for neighbors as my guide,” Coffey said. “I know if I do that, I’ll be headed in the right direction.”

Currently assigned to Conley’s Major Felony Bureau, Coffey has taken past assignments in the Boston Municipal Court, Roxbury and Brighton District Courts, and the office’s Homicide Unit. He is one of about 30 victim-witness advocates employed by Conley’s office. They provide specialized assistance, support, referrals, and information to victims, witnesses, and families involved in criminal cases. Advocates are assigned to the nine district courts in Suffolk County and to most Superior Court trial teams.

Gerard D. Downing was the Berkshire County district attorney and an impassioned voice for victim’s rights from 1991 until his untimely death in 2003. After his death, the state’s DAs created an award in his name and present it each year to a victim-witness advocate whose work carries on his example.