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Award winners
Margaret Martin, Joe Galligan & Cooley partner Maureen Alger
Legal Aid’s sold-out luncheon, And Justice For All… was held
on Friday May 2, at the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley. The luncheon
inspired the guests and helped raise $245,620 in sponsorships for Legal Aid
programs. One highlight of the event was a surprise guest, a young Legal Aid
client from the Teen Parent Project, who spoke movingly about the role Legal
Aid has played in her life. She evoked a standing ovation from the entire room.
Joe Cotchett of
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, Co-Chair of Legal Aid’s Fund for Justice Endowment
Campaign, announced that the Endowment has surpassed the $2 million milestone.
The Fund for Justice Endowment is an additional source of support for Legal
Aid.
Keynote speaker Jeff Hyman inspired the room by telling
story after story of clients he has helped pro bono. Hyman successfully founded
a pro bono program at Intel Corporation where he is Group Counsel. Intel and outside
counsel Baker & McKenzie partner with Legal Aid to help children with
disabilities through the Special Education Pro Bono Project.
The theme of pro bono and enthusiasm for Legal Aid’s work
continued with presentations of the annual awards: the Natalie Lanam
Achievement Award to Joseph Galligan, C.P.A., of Galligan Thompson &
Flocas LLP, the Dorothy M. Wolfe Award to Margaret Laughlin Martin of
the Law Offices of Margaret Laughlin Martin, and the Guardian of Justice Award to the law firm of Cooley Godward Kronish LLP. All three recipients
have been committed supporters of Legal Aid and its mission to improve lives
through equal access to justice for low-income residents of
San Mateo
County.
If you enjoyed the lunch or were inspired you can help plan
the next one. Next year Legal Aid will celebrate its 50th
anniversary and you can be a part of it, just contact Asya Sorokurs at info@legalaidsmc.org to get involved!
CONSERVATORSHIP PROJECT LAUNCHES THIS MONTH
With a one–time grant from San Mateo County’s Aging and
Adult Services, the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County will be training
volunteer attorneys to meet the urgent need of low-income persons seeking help
with the complicated legal process of applying for conservatorships. A conservatorship is usually needed when a person being cared for is no longer
able to make health, financial or other life decisions for him or herself. Caregivers of seniors and parents or guardians of adults with disabilities must
complete complex legal documents and appear in court in order to get approval
for a conservatorship, but many do not have the resources to access legal
assistance.
The
demand for services has been overwhelming. “We have far more clients than we
can serve with our current resources," says Janet Seldon, Legal Director of Pro Bono Activities
at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County. “Traditionally requests for
conservatorship assistance have been referred to experienced attorneys in the
field but now, thanks to the grant from
San Mateo
County,
Legal Aid is proud to offer this training opportunity, and expand the number of
volunteer attorneys who are able to help."
Tenant Clinics
Provide Needed Relief TO RENTERS
If you visit Legal Aid on a Monday afternoon you will find a
waiting room crammed with clients waiting to get advice from a lawyer. You have
just walked into one of three Legal Aid tenant clinics held weekly at the
Legal Aid office, the Daly City Community Center and the
Fair Oaks Community Center in Redwood City. Week after week, in good economic
time and bad, the clinic waiting rooms are full of clients hoping to get help
with landlords that turn off the heat in winter, threaten to evict tenants without
cause and won’t eradicate rats living in their tenants' apartments.
Legal Aid
housing attorney
Shirley Gibson and
her volunteers often stay long after the clinic is scheduled to end in order to see
every client who is waiting for their help. Clients come to the clinic with
worried expressions but usually leave looking relieved, their problems
alleviated by the advice and guidance Shirley and her volunteers provide. The clinics serve about 100 tenants each month and are always in need of Spanish-speaking
volunteers. If you would like to volunteer or support the program financially please contact info@legalaidsmc.org.
Shirley's volunteers were recently honored by Legal Aid as Pro Bono Honorees of the month. To read the story click here.
PENINSULA FAMILY ADVOCACY PROGRAM LAUNCHES REGIONAL MEDICAL-LEGAL COALITION
One of the most innovative programs at Legal Aid is the
Peninsula Family Advocacy Program (FAP). Last fall this medical-legal
collaborative, formed by the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, Lucile Packard
Children’s Hospital and
Ravenswood
Family
Health
Center, launched a
regional coalition of medical-legal partnerships called the Bay Area Regional
Coalition of Medical-Legal Partnerships (BARC). BARC’s members are Legal Aid’s
FAP, the Alameda County Medical-Legal Partnership of the
East
Bay
Community
Law
Center and the Marin
Medical-Legal Partnership of the Legal Aid of Marin. The medical-legal model has spread across the
country. Once other partnerships developed in the Bay Area, FAP decided to
bring them together to share resources and ideas and increase collaboration to
create region-wide systemic change. BARC plans to create a website for sharing
resource materials, train pro bono attorneys to work at medical sites, and
write a research paper educating the community on effects of substandard housing on children’s health and advocating for policy change.
PRO BONO HOURS DOUBLE IN 2007 BUT NEED REMAINS
This past year Legal Aid staff and Legal Director of Pro Bono Activities Janet Seldon developed
three new pro bono projects: the Housing Clinics & the Settlement Conferences
Project in collaboration with housing attorney Shirley Gibson, the San Mateo County
Domestic Violence Collaborative and the Conservatorship Pro Bono Project.
Volunteers were needed for all three programs and Janet Seldon went out and recruited them. As a result, last year pro bono attorneys provided 10,400 hours of free services to Legal Aid's clients, compared to 5,180 in 2006. “We have been lucky enough to have dedicated
volunteers and our clients have truly benefited from the pro bono
representation the pro bono attorneys provide” Janet said. Despite the doubling in the number of
pro bono hours logged for Legal Aid cases there continues to be a
great need for more volunteers as Legal Aid’s client population expands in
uncertain economic times. Legal Aid provides MCLE-approved training in the areas of domestic
violence, restraining orders, eviction defense and conservatorship. To become a pro bono volunteer please contact jbseldon@legalaidsmc.org.
LEGAL AID RECEIVES TAPROOT GRANT FOR NEW WEBSITE
Early next year Legal Aid will have a brand new website
thanks to the Taproot Foundation and its committed volunteers. Legal
Aid is most grateful to Taproot for its award of a service grant, valued at $35,000,
which will provide Legal Aid with a team of professionals working pro bono in
their field to build a new Legal Aid website from scratch.
The project will be directed by Anne Kappmeyer, who has an
impressive marketing, product management and branding background in the technology
industry and is very excited to be working on her first Taproot service grant.
In a non-profit world where online presence is crucial and highly scrutinized,
Legal Aid hopes to reach new donors, clients, and volunteers when the new site
is launched. Look for the new Legal Aid website in early 2009. Thanks again
Taproot!
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