Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Your new year’s resolutions may no longer be intact, but hopefully your will to improve your life and those around you is. To kick off the first public service column of 2024, Natalie Posgate looks back on the 10 most important pro bono and diversity stories of 2023. So slice a piece of that cake that 2024 you said you would avoid and settle in.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook received dozens of nominations for the 2023 DFW Corporate Counsel Awards, which recognize the successes and leadership demonstrated by in-house counsel in North Texas. ACC-DFW and The Lawbook put together an independent group of judges to review the nominations and select the best of the best in 13 categories. During the next 10 days, The Lawbook and ACC-DFW will announce the finalists for GC of the Year, Senior Counsel of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Business Litigation of the Year, M&A Deal of the Year, Corporate Secretary/Legal Advisor of the Year and Lifetime Achievement.
In the last edition of P.S. for 2023, the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program announces January dates for pro bono legal clinics, Witherite Law Group donates tens of thousands to support families and seniors in need during the holidays, the VA rolls out a new program supporting homeless veterans (or those facing homelessness) and the Dallas Hispanic Bar Association announces its 2024 president and other new leadership.
This month, Haynes Boone’s Dallas office launched a new community project that works with educational nonprofit United to Learn to support an underserved elementary school in the firm’s backyard. Beyond bolstering student achievement and helping to erase systemic inequities, the new partnership provides the opportunity to diversify the legal industry pipeline by reaching kids at an earlier age at a school that feeds into a high school Haynes Boone has a longstanding relationship with.
This week’s edition of P.S. features a new graduate program at St. Mary’s School of Law for special education advocacy, a holiday toy gift drive by Gray Reed, a Target shopping spree sponsored by Witherite Law Firm that benefits a local nonprofit bridging the gap between teens and law enforcement and an event honoring the major donors of the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program’s Equal Access to Justice Campaign.
This week’s edition of P.S. features the opening of an art exhibition at a Houston law firm that celebrates diversity, a movie screening hosted for neglected and abused children, a gift drive benefiting foster care children, a top scorer of LGBTQ+-focused Corporate Equality Index, and the honorees of Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas’ recent Builders of Justice Awards.
This week’s edition of P.S. features a Toyota lawyer’s recognition for her commitment to justice and to helping the underrepresented, a Texas Appleseed pilot program that works to help domestic violence victims break free from coerced debt brought by their abusers, December dates for Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program’s pro bono legal clinics, and a winter coat donation occurring this weekend for low-income students in the Fort Worth Independent School District sponsored by a major Dallas personal injury firm.
It was the actions of a series of men in the 1970s and 1980s that derailed the rest of Rachel Faili’s life, even almost ending it. It was the decision by a group of Sidley Austin lawyers to take action and represent this Houston veteran pro bono that helped her move forward from decades of the severe post traumatic stress disorder that has haunted her since her military service. This is the story of both events, the bridge between them and how a lawyer’s skills can be used to truly make a difference in the lives of those who suffer.
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