Young Lawyers Division 2000-2001
MARCH/APRIL 2000
Congratulations to the 1999 ABA YLD Public Service Subgrants Winners!
By Lori Davis
A few state and local YLD affiliates are beaming with pride after the Public Service Subgrant winners were announced at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Dallas this past February. Affiliates across the nation heeded The Affiliate's call for public service subgrant applications. From this pool of applicants, twenty-five affiliates were awarded some level of funding. The award winning service projects were as diverse as teen court programs to a crime prevention service program for seniors. While all the award winners and their project titles are listed below, The Affiliate wishes to spotlight some of the top award recipients.
Congratulations to the Georgia Bar Association's Young Lawyers Division for its award-winning program entitled The Advocates for Special Needs of Children. This committee plans to publish a brochure detailing the legal rights of Georgia children with special needs. The committee will distribute these brochures to persons and organizations that serve children with disabilities and their families. The Georgia YLD committee expects to distribute a minimum of 7,500 brochures by May 2000 and an additional 7,500 brochures by September 2000. The project's objective is to ensure that parents of children with special needs are aware of their child's right to free and appropriate public education.
The Hawaii State Bar Association YLD's project Ready for the World plans to have attorneys speak to high school students about hypothetical issues they will face as they prepare for life after age eighteen. The project will be targeted to all public high schools and will utilize attorneys from the Hawaii Bar as speakers. The project's goal is to educate young people about their legal rights and responsibilities, as well as to prepare students to make informed decisions in the future.
The Tomorrow's Lawyers project, developed by the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis YLD, has a slightly different focus. Its mission is to start an outreach program focused on minority youths with hopes of interesting them in pursuing a career in the law. The Tomorrow's Lawyers project was funded this year to develop a pamphlet to inspire minority students to seriously consider legal careers. The project will distribute 5,000 pamphlets to area youth from July 2000 through May 2001.
Last, but not least, the Philadelphia Bar Association YLD has designed its Legal Line en Espanol program. This project seeks to provide free legal advice to Spanish-speaking persons once each month. Volunteer attorneys will staff the telephones and will even receive a light dinner. Legal Line en Espanol will continue on an ongoing basis for the citizens of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia YLD's hope is for the program to become firmly entrenched in the Hispanic community in that city.
These service programs are evidence that YLD affiliates across the nation continue to embrace the need for ongoing programs that serve the public at large. Again, The Affiliate salutes all of this year's award recipients and wishes them well as they implement these many worthwhile projects.
Note: Many thank are extended to this year's ABA YLD Public Service Subgrants Program judges: Ross Adams, Atlanta, GA; Sara A. Austin, York, PA; Stephen J. Curley, Stamford, CT; Christopher M. Kaisershot, Minneapolis, MN; Carrie K. Okinaga, Honolulu, HI; Brian F. Stayton, Tampa, FL; Susan Koehler Sullivan, Los Angeles, CA; Adrienne Yeung, Reno, NV; and Subgrants Program Chair, Roger H. Contreras, Tucson, AZ.
Lori Davis is an assistant editor of The Affiliate and an administrative law judge/ hearing officer with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health Services in Frankfort, Kentucky.
