Freed to Run $2.25 million multi-marathon fundraiser to begin Monday at Florida Supreme Court, end Saturday at Duval County Courthouse Proceeds to
While the past months changed so many parts of our lives, the need for pro bono civil legal assistance has not diminished and in many cases has increased. Our community is lucky to have so many attorneys who are willing to meet this challenge and volunteer their time and expertise to assist those in need. Each year, the 4th Judicial Circuit and the Jacksonville Bar Association pro bono committees celebrate local attorneys who provided at least 20 hours of volunteer civil legal service in the previous calendar year at an appreciation ceremony. For the second year, the William A. Van Nortwick Jr. Presentation of the Pins Pro Bono Awards Ceremony was a virtual webinar event open to the legal community.
Jacksonville attorney Mike Freed has left his mark locally cultivating an annual series of marathons raising money for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid. Now he’s asking lawyers around the country to donate their time to help to help prevent a deluge of evictions rooted in the pandemic’s effect on jobs and incomes. “Sometimes you have to give up your time without compensation for the greater good,” said Freed, who is president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents, an organization involving Bar associations in 53 states and U.S. territories.
Jacksonville Area Legal Aid has garnered support from many business sectors over the years, but in a true first, JALA will receive a portion of the proceeds of a craft-brewed IPA from Intuition Ale Works that will be sold in select stores, on draft in the company’s taproom, and at this September’s St. Johns County Sing Out Loud Festival. “What’s not to love about this partnership?” asked JALA CEO Jim Kowalski. “We are so grateful, and so very thirsty, for this one-of-a-kind support. This is the coolest thing ever.”
As COVID-19 cases have surged across Northeast Florida, thousands of people have continued being evicted from local homes despite federal rules written to prevent that during the pandemic. Duval County judges issued 1,991 orders for police to evict tenants during the first seven months of this year, when landlords filed 4,716 lawsuits to take back rental homes, the Duval County clerk of courts office reported.
One of the most common complaints the I-TEAM receives involves tenants upset with their landlord about maintenance problems that are not being corrected. In many cases, we learn that tenants are often not following the correct legal steps to hold their landlord accountable. So we want to ask: do you know your rights as a tenant? What can you do if your a/c is not working? Has your landlord dragged their feet to fix maintenance problems in your apartment? Do you have pests or mold? Jacksonville Area Legal Aid attorney Mary DeVries, who specializes in Florida tenant rights, joined us on The Morning Show to walk us through what your landlord is required to do under the law and how to hold him or her responsible if they don’t do it.
Poverty passed on over three generations affects just 1 in 100 White Americans, compared with 1 in 5 Blacks Americans. That’s the finding of a paper from a team of researchers who examined racial disparities in income mobility and concluded there’s a “stark racial gap” in the persistence of poverty across multiple generations in the U.S. By the third generation, Black Americans are 41% more likely to be in poverty than Whites Americans.
A combined effort between legal aid agencies and a volunteer lawyer to help clients facing reverse mortgage foreclosures may be providing a blueprint to help reverse financial constraints faced by legal aid offices. Palm City attorney Paul Regensdorf has worked with Coast to Coast Legal Services of South Florida and Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, among others, in a joint effort that, using state law on fee awards, can generate fees for both the volunteer lawyer and the legal aid offices.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a steady impact on the finances of families across the First Coast, and despite vaccinations making it possible for more businesses to reopen, the number of landlords filing for court-ordered evictions remains high. "There have been a consistent level of filings," said Suzanne Garrow, an attorney with the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid office who works with renters facing eviction.
After raising nearly $1.5 million in its first four years, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s largest fundraiser, Freed to Run, will be closing in on its $2.25 million goal under the leadership of four newly appointed event co-chairs: Dr. Raoul Sanchez, president of Carithers Pediatric Group; Deno Hicks, managing partner of Converge Public Strategies for Northeast Florida; and attorneys Thomas E. Bishop and John S. Mills of Bishop & Mills.
