2016 pro bono award winners include children’s and
tenants’ rights activists
By Amy Yarbrough
Staff Writer
Diversity Awards honor 5
At its Annual Meeting, the State Bar honored five lawyers, firms and programs that have increased diversity.
The 2016 Diversity Awards recognized outstanding efforts and significant contributions to ensuring the legal profession is open to all.
Individual: Thuy Thi Nguyen
Law firm: Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP
Bar Association (joint award): Black Women Lawyers of Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley Bar Association
The Education Pipeline Award went to the Los Angeles County Superior Court's Teen Court Program. It raises student awareness about the legal system and opportunities for careers in law.
A teen whose father was assassinated before he was born and who
was abandoned by his mother, who ended up being beaten twice by members of a gang
he refused to join. A 15-year-old whose father punished his family by
withholding food, then left them altogether.
Teodora Manolova helped these and four other vulnerable children
from Central America stay in the United States legally in 2015 and gave them something
equally important: a sense of security.
A partner at Goodwin Proctor LLP, Manolova volunteered more
than 300 hours helping secure legal guardians for the children and obtaining Special
Immigration Juvenile status so they could stay in the U.S.
In the process, Manolova conquered trust, language and
cultural barriers to help the children. At times, just finding an old address
in their home country proved a herculean task. She is one of nine individuals,
firms and programs that were honored with President’s Pro Bono Service Awards
on Sept. 30 during the State Bar’s Annual Meeting in San Diego.
Here is a little more information about Manolova and the
other outstanding award recipients.
Individual from a law firm
|
Manolova |
Manolova, who has been working on guardianship and
children’s rights matters since 2006 also devoted 175 hours in 2005 to staffing
legal clinics and writing a manual for people with HIV/AIDS.
Miguel A. Mexicano, director of representation for the
Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, which partnered with Bet Tzedek in the court
matters, said despite the demands of also being a litigation partner at an
international law firm, Manolova “nevertheless answered the call.
“These children were the targets of various forms of
violence, both outside their homes and, perhaps more tragically, inside their
homes,” Mexicano wrote. “Ms. Manolova’s clients faced constant threats of
physical harm and even death at the hands of some of the world’s most vicious
gang members.”
Law firm team
|
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett |
Working with the ACLU of Northern California, an eight-attorney
team from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett’s Palo Alto office secured a precedent-setting
ruling finding Clovis Unified School District’s abstinence-only-until-heterosexual-marriage sex education
unlawful.
The first to put a district to test over a 2003 California
law addressing sex education, the suit accused Clovis Unified of jeopardizing
students’ health at risk by failing to provide comprehensive, medically
accurate and bias-free sex education to its middle and high schoolers. As a result,
the district was forced to remove incorrect and biased information from its
curriculum, discuss Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods
and sexually transmitted disease prevention and provide material relevant for
all sexual orientations.
Materials submitted in support of the law firm team’s
nomination note that the case “saves hundreds of thousands of students in
California (both present and future) from outdated and harmful sex education
teaching practices that may lead to unwanted pregnancies, psychological
distress or other harmful practices resulting from poor sex education.”
Individual from a law firm
|
Ross |
Jack D. Ross was at a disadvantage when he first started
offering his time to help victims of violence facing immigration removal
proceedings in 2010.
Not only did he not have a background in immigration law,
but at times he had to use his own resources to pay for psychological
counseling and experts for his clients’ cases. Ross’ firm, Lewis Brisbois
Bisgaard & Smith, also had no formal pro bono practice.
In 2011, Ross led an effort to bolster pro bono at the firm
and now trains and mentors his colleagues doing that type of work. In 2015, he
volunteered more than 250 hours of his time working with Public Counsel in Los
Angeles to represent unaccompanied minors and victims of domestic and gang
violence in immigration proceedings.
Distinguished pro bono service
|
Korean American Bar Association
of Southern California |
Since 2002, members of the Korean American Bar Association
of Southern California have devoted themselves to helping residents of Los
Angeles’ Koreatown at monthly legal clinics.
A partnership with Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the
clinics help residents of Koreatown, which has the largest concentration of
Koreans outside Korea, to understand their rights and navigate the legal
system.
In a letter supporting the bar association’s nomination,
Jenny Seon, interim executive director of the Korean Resource Center, wrote
that through working together the two organizations have been able assist
nearly 500 applicants for naturalization and answered more than 2,000
inquiries.
“The KABA Foundation provides critical legal education and
information to the community through their pro bono clinics and targeted
outreach,” Seon wrote. “As a result, community members have been equipped to
better access and navigate the legal system.”
Law firm branch office
|
Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton |
In 2015, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton’s Orange
County office not only increased its pro bono hours to a local legal
organization but engaged every one of its attorneys in the volunteer work.
A vital resource for the Public Law Center, the county’s pro
bono law firm, Sheppard Mullin took on eight important cases on the center’s
behalf last year, including that of a transgender veteran seeking to appeal her
application for veterans’ benefits. The appeal was ultimately granted.
“Although this case involved many sensitive issues, the firm
did not shy away from enthusiastically jumping into the case without hesitation
to provide crucial support to this veteran client,” Kenneth Babcock, executive
director and general counsel for the center, wrote in nomination materials.
In addition, the firm sends four or five attorneys each
month to Public Law Center’s Children’s Legal Clinic at Children’s Hospital of
Orange County, where they work with the parents or guardians of children with
disabilities on matters including conservatorships. The firm is also a partner
in its federal pro se clinic and its reaffirmation bankruptcy clinic.
Individual from a government office
|
Helen Geoffroy |
Described as positive and upbeat, Helen Geoffroy rarely
misses an opportunity to volunteer at Voluntary Legal Services Program of
Northern California’s clinics.
In 2015 alone she devoted more than 90 hours to providing
free legal advice to low-income individuals with employment or debt-related
issues at the clinics and served as a mentor to law students, helping them
improve their interviewing skills. Geoffroy, who started volunteering with the
organization in 2011, has increased her pro bono hours every year since,
despite a busy job as an attorney with the California Department of State
Hospitals.
In a letter in support of her nomination, Heather Tiffee, staff
attorney for Volunteer Legal Services, described her as a faithful, consistent
and dependable volunteer.
“To date, I cannot recall a client who, after meeting with
Ms. Geoffroy, did not leave happy and more satisfied with the legal advice and
assistance provided,” she said.
Recently admitted
|
Lolita Fernandes |
Fully committed to helping low-income San Franciscans,
Lolita Fernandes provided more than 850 pro bono hours in 2015, representing 50
tenants through Bay Area Legal Aid.
As part of its housing unit, she helped staff attorneys on
unlawful detainers, among other things, and took depositions, prepared for
trial and helped clients preserve housing subsidies and fight illegal rent
increases.
Fernandes’ own path was not without its challenges. She
initially came to the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa, became licensed to practice
law in 2014 and only recently got her work permit.
“Since I did not have a work permit, I volunteered my time
and legal skills to help indigent clients fight for their rights,” she wrote in
nomination materials. “Despite my personal struggles being financially
dependent on my spouse, I continued to passionately assist my clients for the
past few years and did not give up. I can confidently say that it is a
rewarding experience.”
Individual from a corporate practice
|
Joel B. Silver |
In-house counsel and a patent attorney at Gilead Sciences
Inc., Joel B. Silver has devoted hundreds of hours to survivors of domestic
violence.
In 2015 alone, he found time to log nearly 200 pro bono
hours to represent four domestic violence survivors at hearings to obtain
permanent restraining orders and child custody and support orders. In addition,
he helped an undocumented client who’d suffered abuse obtain a visa.
Thanks to his efforts, one of Silver’s clients was able to
get a five-year restraining order, the longest you can get at an initial
hearing, as well as full legal and physical custody of her children.
Limited active practice
|
Stephen M. Kociol |
Though retired since 2008, Stephen M. Kociol has done plenty
since, including single-handedly developing a labor practice for California
Rural Legal Assistance.
In 2015, he devoted more than 750 hours to the organization
and helped establish a clinic to help low-income workers pursue claims for
unpaid wages. He also volunteers with the Santa Cruz County Community Action
Board Day Worker Center, where he spent 150 hours last year helping to develop
training materials and other tools that have helped the organization increase
its ability to process wage claims for day laborers.
According to Gretchen Regenhardt, CRLA’s regional director,
Kociol has “dramatically improved the lives of untold number of low-wage
workers in Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey [counties].
“CRLA is now able to offer services in labor and employment
law for workers in non-agricultural industries, in addition to our previous
working in housing, education and public benefits.”