Florida Civil Legal UPDATE

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On April 8, the Chief Financial Officer of Florida, Alex Sink, held a news conference in which she praised the Florida Attorneys Saving Homes project and took mortgage lenders and servicers to task.  Flanked by Kent Spuhler, Alice Vickers, and Jennifer Newton of Florida Legal Services, the CFO expressed frustration felt by homeowners and volunteer attorneys in working with lenders to modify terms.

Jennifer Newton, Alex Sink, Alice Vickers, Kent Spuhler

Here’s an article from the The News-Press covering the presser:

TALLAHASSEE - Florida families facing foreclosure run into a frustrating maze when they try to work out emergency arrangements with their lenders, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink said Wednesday.

Backed by lawyers from Florida Legal Services Inc., she announced plans for an April 20 meeting in Tampa to bring banking executives together with lawyers who give free legal advice to the poor.

Since the economy crashed last year, with housing always ranking as the state’s chief economic challenge, Sink said tens of thousands of families have faced foreclosure. She said many of them heed the advice of the banking and mortgage industry, to contact their lenders at the earliest sign of trouble, but that homeowners often get no answers - or can’t even find out whom they need to contact.

“We’ve been hearing a sense of frustration from our lawyer partners,” Sink said. “They were getting wrapped up in the runaround.”

There were more than 46,000 Florida foreclosure filings in Florida, ranking the state second in the nation.

She said the Florida Bar and Legal Services have created a volunteer program, involving about 1,000 attorneys, to help people facing foreclosure who can’t afford to hire a lawyer. Jennifer Newton, an attorney in the “Florida Lawyers Saving Homes” program, said about 25,000 calls have been received since last June.

Newton said to qualify a property must be a homestead and the owner must be unable to hire private counsel - and must not have already been served with a foreclosure order.

Sink said she will convene the Tampa meeting with “a dozen or so of the largest lenders” in the state, to work out a method for volunteer lawyers to cut through the bureaucracy and get answers for homeowners.

From the next issue of the Florida Bar News…

Administrative Law Section works to help disabled adults and children

The state is in such dire straits right now that those lawyers blessed with the gift of a little spare time are apt to find long lists of people needing help. A new measure by The Florida Bar’s Administrative Law Section and Florida Legal Services is aimed at helping Florida’s disabled adults and children rise to the top of that list. And they’ve made it quick, free, and relatively easy for lawyers to get up to speed in time to roll up their sleeves and pitch in….

The section held training for both groups in November and December in Tallahassee to educate future volunteers, but those who missed it shouldn’t worry: all the documentation for both trainings, as well as video, are available both at floridaprobono.org and the Administrative Section’s Web site, www.flaadminlaw.org.

Sheila Meehan of Florida Legal Services coordinates the program, which is just getting off the ground now and very actively seeking volunteers. Meehan credits McArthur and former administrative law section chair Andy Bertron with being the first to sign up. The two are awaiting their first cases.

“These are the people who are least able to help themselves — they are in financial need and have been disabled before they reached adulthood — they’re in this situation through no fault of their own,” Bertron said. “I can’t think of a more deserving class of people for us to help.”

There’s much more at the source.

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 »

Over 300 guests are expected to attend Legal Aid Service of Broward County’s (LAS’s) 8th Annual FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD gala, an evening of awards and entertainment that will celebrate the agency’s 35th year of providing civil legal services to the underserved in Broward.  The dinner will be held on May 15, 2008 at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina to benefit children and families.  Its theme: “YOU’VE BEEN SERVED.”

Honoree Chairs of the event are TERRENCE AND MARY KAY RUSSELL AND RUSSELL E. AND JANET CARLISLE.  The 8th Annual for the Public Good Committee, co-chaired by Katherine Birnbaum, Esq. and Juliette Lippman, Esq. of Kirschbaum, Birnbaum, Lippman  & Gregoire, PLLC, is seeking sponsors, commemorative journal advertisers and gathering Silent Auction donations.

“In these difficult economic times, we are especially grateful to Dr. Arthur and Belinda Keiser for their MAJOR CIRCLE sponsorship,” said  Kathy Thomsen, Director of Development for LAS. Read the rest of this entry »

Brevard County Legal Aid recently hosted their Annual Pro Bono Awards and Recognition Gala at the Suntree Country Club in Melbourne. First District Court of Appeal Judge William A. Van Nortwick was the evening’s special guest speaker. The Annual Gala, strongly supported by National City Bank and the Brevard Bar Foundation, recognized attorneys who have gone above and beyond to help the poor in Brevard. Attorney Scott Krasny was deservedly named Attorney of the Year. BCLA’s Recognition Gala is considered one of the most important events in Brevard’s Legal Circle.  Read the rest of this entry »

Foley & Lardner, LLP first opened its Miami office on December 7, 2007 and has grown to approximately 15 attorneys and 5 paralegals, along with numerous other people that are an integral part of their office.  Since then, Foley & Lardner has had 100% participation by its attorneys and paralegals in pro-bono work.

Foley & Lardner LLP as a whole has a strong commitment to pro-bono work as evidenced by its national pro-bono committee, the goal of which is to have each office of the Firm represented in this committee by one or more of the local attorneys, and thereafter, having such local representative(s) of the national committee encourage each and every one of the lawyers and paralegals of their respective offices to participate in pro-bono work.   After that, the local representatives report to the national committee on their progress.  Mark Neuberger and Darin I. Zenov lead the pro-bono committee for the Miami office. Read the rest of this entry »

At its meeting on January 30, the Florida Pro Bono Coordinators Association honored two of their own.  Paige Palmer and Ethel Wells are the recipients of the 2009 Kay Meyers Pro Bono Coordinator Award.  Normally this is an honor reserved for only one Coordinator per year.  However, the nominations for Paige and Ethel were so compelling that a joint award for 2009 was most appropriate.

Paige Palmer & Ethel Wells

The Kay Meyers Pro Bono Coordinator Award honors a pro bono coordinator who is an outstanding coordinator in a local legal services provider as well as an active member of the Florida Pro Bono Coordinators Association.

Named for Kay Meyers, Pro Bono Coordinator for the Polk County office of Florida Rural Legal Services, this award honors Kay’s dedication to her job, the volunteer attorneys and clients, as well as her significant contributions to the Florida Pro Bono Coordinators Association.  Her untimely death in 1992 inspiried the FPBCA to honor her service with this award.

We learned last week that the First DCA did not agree with the Advocacy Center that every person facing a reduction in services from the Agency for Persons with Disabilities is entitled to a fair hearing on the mertis.  We covered the challenge here.

Now there’s reporting on the status of denial letters.

Of the 5,400 people who have appealed, the agency has judged that about 800 are “legally sufficient” for review by the Department of Administrative Hearings. The agency is still mailing out response letters. About 2,000 denial letters went out last week, and more people will get letters in the next several weeks. Those turned down have 10 days to amend their complaint and try again.

That’s obviously not a lot of turn-around time.  For legal services advocates concerned about this issue, please visit and join the Health & Senior Law Section of FLAdvocate.org.  There we have training, practice materials, and a community of advocates working to bring justice to some of our most at-risk neighbors.  A pro bono program also has been launched through the Administrative Law Section of the Bar.  Check out floridaprobono.org for more information.

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 »