Happenings June 2012
|
Digiacinto |
The San Mateo County Bar Association’s unique program
for providing lawyers for low-income criminal defendants has won a national
award from the American Bar Association.
Many counties staff their own public defender offices, but San
Mateo’s 43-year-old county-funded program makes private attorneys available at
no cost to defendants.
Executive Director John Digiacinto will accept the Harrison
Tweed Award at the American Bar Association annual meeting in August.
The program was nominated for the award by the head of the
Texas Indigent Defense Commission, which has created two private defender
offices using San Mateo County’s model.
Members of the Orange County Bar Association’s Community Outreach Committee will volunteer at a pet adoption event June 3 at
Irvine Animal Care Center.
The center’s mission to find homes for as many pets as
possible, spread awareness of shelters and homeless animals and highlight the
importance of spaying and neutering pets. Volunteers will help vendors unload
their vehicles and deliver items and animals to their booths.
More information, including volunteer registration, is
available on the association’s
web site.
The San Joaquin County Bar Association sponsored a Law Day program
that allowed 1,600 eighth-graders to have a live, candid conversation with
inmates from Chowchilla Women’s Prison and Folsom Prison.
The unique program was held May 1 at
the San Joaquin County Office of Education. The bar association paid for bus
transportation from schools in Lodi and Stockton.
“If we can just reach one or two of
these kids to help them make a better choice that may save their life, it’s all
worth it,” said Terry Costa, senior judicial secretary for the San Joaquin
County Superior Court and the bar association’s 2012 Law Day Award recipient.
Deputy District Attorney Tori
Verber-Salazar did some role-playing demonstrations with the students and
started the conversation with the inmates. Each of the inmates introduced
themselves, identified the crime that he or she was
convicted of and how long he or she had been in prison – many since before the
eighth-graders were born. Students had a chance to ask questions and receive
candid answers from the prisoners.