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State Bar honors the profession’s best

A retired administrative law judge joins the State Bar’s Pro Bono Practice program and helps the homeless. A law student starts an innocence project. A solo practitioner creates a system of legal help for veterans.

These are just a few of the services donated by lawyers and lawyers-to-be who received the 2011 President’s Pro Bono Service Awards, which recognize California attorneys and law students who provide free legal services to those who cannot afford to pay for them.

“The recipients of the State Bar’s 2011 President’s Pro Bono Service Awards represent the very best of our legal profession,” said former State Bar President Bill Hebert. “When we look in our professional mirror, these are the men and women we want to see in our reflection.”

Ronald Blubaugh

Ronald Blubaugh

Ronald Blubaugh is one of those people. After retiring from the Public Employment Relations Board as chief administrative law judge, Blubaugh joined the bar’s Emeritus Attorney Pro Bono Program, which since has been named the Pro Bono Practice Program. He received the award in the limited practice category for regularly helping between 25 and 50 homeless people each week with legal issues at the Tommy Clinkenbeard Legal Clinic in Sacramento, which is sponsored by Legal Services of Northern California. He followed up at the monthly public defender clinic to prepare the clients for their court appearances and then attended the “Loaves and Fishes” court to assist the public defender with the clients' court appearances. Because of the trust the homeless have in him, Blubaugh also has become a liaison between attorneys representing the interests of the homeless and possible witnesses in a Sacramento case challenging the seizure of items owned by the homeless.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Left to right: Gila Jones, David Eisman,
Stacy Horth-Neubert, Joshua Schneiderman

Attorneys from the Los Angeles office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP averaged 100 hours each of pro bono work in 2010 ― more than 6 percent of the office’s total billable hours. The work for which the team received a pro bono award included representation in asylum cases, nonprofit incorporation, employment law counseling and advice as well as individual and more far-reaching litigation. Skadden lawyers successfully challenged Fresno’s income eligibility limits for health care, which were the lowest of any major county in the state. Clients of Skadden Arps pro bono lawyers included tenants living in squalor who received a favorable settlement from the landlord, Holocaust survivors seeking reparations from Germany and a transgender individual fleeing her country because of violence and death threats from local police. Skadden attorneys also advocated for special education rights, finalized uncontested adoptions and provided corporate, tax, intellectual property, real estate and employment law advice to nonprofit organizations. They also participate in mentoring and education programs.

Suesan Gerard

Suesan Gerard

Loyola Law School Professor Laurie L. Levenson calls Suesan Gerard, a student at the Los Angeles law school, “the most selfless student I have met in 25 years of teaching.” The recipient of the president’s award in the law student category, Gerard single-handedly created the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent as a second-year law student and spent 500 hours working on it while maintaining a 3.95 grade point average. She personally has handled intake for more than 100 cases in which inmates claim they were wrongfully convicted, and students now get school credit for working on project cases. “The impact of Suesan’s work is immeasurable,” Levenson said, noting that the release of one wrongfully convicted client is imminent. Gerard also works in other student organizations, including the Public Interest Law Foundation, Women’s Law Association, Black Law Students Association and the Academic Support Program. She also volunteered in the Juvenile Justice Clinic and the Office of the Federal Public Defender Capital Habeas Unit.

Judith Litzenberger

Judith Litzenberger

Judith Litzenberger, who focuses on military, criminal and civil law, received the award in the solo practitioner category. A veteran herself, she lived on her military pension while spending 1,200 hours creating the San Diego Superior Court Veterans Treatment Review Calendar (VTRC), which gives veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other service-related mental disorders access to treatment as an alternative to incarceration for some criminal offenses. Litzenberger helped train citizen volunteers to serve as mentors to the vets and set up a collaborative court to solve the problem of defendants who are military veterans suffering from a service-connected psychological disorder. She also trained 20 military lawyers to represent clients in homeless court and drafted legislation to support treatment courts for veterans throughout the state. Superior Court Judge Ronald Krauel said Litzenberger’s legal work “has been characterized by an insightful identification and articulation of the issues and options, an attention to the details, an appreciation of what is achievable and an ingenuity in solving problems.”

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Loeb & Loeb LLP
Back row left to right: Eric Schwartz, Elizabeth Gonzalez,
William Brody; Front row left to right: Laura Wytsma,
Marissa Hurwitz, Kristen Minger

A team of attorneys from Loeb & Loeb LLP in Los Angeles received the pro bono award in the law firm team category for their work with Public Counsel’s Immigration Rights Project. The lawyers seek asylum in the United States for people threatened with death or violence in their own countries. Their successes included asylum for a Cameroonian mother who was reunited with her children after eight years, an Ethiopian whose father and brother were murdered by the ruling political party and who himself had been imprisoned and tortured, and a woman fleeing from an abusive former spouse in Mexico. The team also is involved in pro bono work involving disability rights, domestic violence and disaster legal assistance.

Fermin Valencia

Fermin Valencia

Fermin Valencia sets aside plenty of time for pro bono work despite having started his own firm only three years ago. Considered one of the most dedicated volunteer attorneys at the Santa Ana Public Law Center, where his fluency in Spanish is a huge boon, Valencia’s main focus is immigration and bankruptcy law. “Mr. Valencia's legal services are of critical value in Orange County, where nonprofits are scarce, and free or low-cost legal services are not always available,” wrote Kenneth Babcock, executive director and general counsel of Public Law Center. “. . . He treats his clients with compassion and understanding and provides excellent legal assistance, no matter where the client came from.” Valencia received the award in the recently admitted category.

Cotchet, Pitre & McCarthy LLP

Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP
Back row left to right: Tracy Lim,
Jennifer Wang; Front row left to right:
Niki Okcu, Jessica Curiale

The law firm team of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP of Burlingame jumped in to help an 89-year-old visually impaired widow keep the house she has lived in for 60 years. An unscrupulous contractor got her to sign loan documents bilking her of $600,000. She sought help from Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, which in turn enlisted Niki Okcu and Jessica Curiale from Cotchett. They filed suit against the contractor and various mortgage lenders and servicers and were able to remove a lien of more than $420,000 and get additional compensation for the woman. “Niki and her team really deserve this award,” the widow, Pauline Reade, wrote in a nominating letter. “Without lawyers like them there would be people who would not be able to defend themselves against this kind of financial abuse.”

Jacqueline Brown Scott

Jacqueline Brown Scott

Many of Jacqueline Brown Scott’s pro bono immigration clients live one or two hours away from her San Francisco office, so rather than have them make the trek to her, she makes house calls. Brown is a recipient of the President’s Pro Bono Service Award in the solo practitioner category. She spends 20 percent of her time on pro bono cases, with a focus on assisting immigrant children. Through Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the National Center for Immigrant and Refugee Children and the Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto, she has appealed denials for asylum and legal immigration status, obtained asylum status and won appropriate guardianship for a girl who was going to be deported, among other immigration cases. “Jacqueline’s provision of free legal services to children truly stands out as something special,” wrote immigration attorney Claire Hulse in a nominating letter. “She has built a specialty practice helping the most vulnerable of clients imaginable ― unaccompanied refugee children. “

DLA Piper's

DLA Piper
Back row left to right: Paul (Dash) McLean, Andrew Valentine,
Eric Ryan; Front row left to right: Renee Chantler,
Henry Lesser, Yiman Zhang

DLA Piper’s California offices contributed an average 100 hours per lawyer of pro bono work in 2010 for a total of more than 29,000 hours of free services to clients who could not otherwise afford legal representation. The cases ran the gamut, from domestic violence, immigration and asylum to housing, Social Security disability benefits and tax and consumer law. “It is because of DLA Piper's broad and sustained dedication to the legally underserved, their advocacy on behalf of those most vulnerable in our state, and their example to others in the profession that (eight legal services programs throughout California) jointly nominate DLA Piper for this award,” a nomination letter said.  DLA Piper won in the law firm as a whole award.