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.”
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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.
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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.
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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, 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.”
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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.
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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.
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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 |
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. “
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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.