Florida Civil Legal UPDATE

Just got this from Donna Graf and had to share.  Everyone in Orlando is going Magic-crazy.  Including the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association, Inc.

From their building:

We offer our sincere congratulations to Mary Anne on being selected as the 2009 William Trickel, Jr. Professionalism Award Recipient by her peers in the Orange County Bar.

This, from the Orange County Bar Associaton:

Mary Anne Curtis De Petrillo was born January 11, 1952 in Jacksonville, Florida. The eldest of six children born to a career U.S. Marine, she grew up living primarily in Southern California, the Eastern Carolinas, and Florida where her father was stationed. Before going to college, she attended nine different schools, including three high schools. Her parents wanted her schooled by Jesuit priests and so the decision was made that she attend a Jesuit college in Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. There she spent four happy years, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Political Science in 1974. When it was time for law school, Loyola University in New Orleans became the Jesuit school of choice. She graduated from Loyola with a J.D. degree in 1977.

Mary Anne remembers very clearly the day she decided to become an attorney. It was the day President Kennedy was assassinated. She still remembers the gripping, momentary fear that the country would fall into violence and chaos. Yet, the knowledge of our system of government came back to her as a quiet comfort. She knew from her studies that the defenders of our form of government, those who would protect the Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, were members of the legal profession. She became determined on that day to become one of them. The turmoil of the 1960s only reinforced her desire to serve the country through the legal profession.

After law school, Mary Anne took a position as a legal aid lawyer for two years until the program ran out of money. She was offered a position at an AV rated firm in the same community, where later she became a partner and a very active pro bono attorney. At age thirty two, she realized she wanted to go back to practicing poverty law full time; she answered an advertisement for a Litigation Director at the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association and began in March 1984. Mary Anne became Executive Director in 1985 and was charged with ensuring that the four-attorney organization became the best public interest law firm possible with a strong pro bono component. Since that time, the firm has grown to 18 attorneys and 24 support staff, with more than 900 attorney-volunteers providing quality legal services to literally thousands of low income clients and abused and neglected dependent children annually.

Mary Anne has been an active volunteer throughout her career in local and statewide bar association, non- profits, and other groups. She currently serves on the Florida Legal Services Board of Directors and the Community Leadership Council of the Howard Phillips Center for Children and Families. She has been married since 1978 to John De Petrillo, an artist and the Exhibit Coordinator for the Orange County History Center. They have one child, David, who resides with his wife, Kelly, and daughter, Skyler, in Amherst, New Hampshire.

The LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF THE ORANGE COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION, INC. has announced its training series for volunteer attorneys through May 19.  For OCBA members, the training is free.  For non-OCBA members participating in the LAS pro bono program, the training is free.  Pre-registration is required for the free lunch and requested for training (or subject to space availability if not pre-registered). For more information, please emailctucker@legalaidocba.org or mcarbo@legalaidocba.org or merazmus@legalaidocba.org. Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to pass this along as an example of a wonderful release/feature.

What We Do
Donna Graf, Manager of Development
Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar, Inc.

Of course, one of the greatest reasons to donate to a charity is to help the less fortunate.  If you have been blessed, making a decision to donate to charity helps you give back and enrich your community.  And, you will gain certain tax benefits.

Poverty is an important and emotional issue.  When an applicant is screened to become a client of a Pro Bono or in-house lawyer through the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association, Inc. inquiries are made to ensure financial eligibility for our scarce resources.  Each case is given the appropriate intake time, to ensure they are handled in a caring, professional manner.  While LASOCBA communicates with thousands of applicants each year-each person’s legal issues are significant and challenging to that carrier.  While procedurally, “divorce” is “divorce”, when broken down as family issues, it becomes very personal.  The measurable outcome that results is often food, housing or safety for our neighbors.  At the LASOCBA, Pro Bono Attorneys, Volunteers and Staff handle the challenging intake position with  eligibility determinations being made.
Read the rest of this entry »