Southern Legal Counsel forces change in policy of denying indigent litigants filing fee waivers

by Jennifer Etienne When Gainesville-based Southern Legal Counsel (SLC) took as clients of a group of homeless people arrested for being in a St. Petersburg park after closing time, they ended up securing access to the courts not only for their clients, but for all civil litigants who can’t afford

Florida Legal Services prevents Medicaid HMOs from limiting care based on family members’ jobs

For three years Mike Cornelius had run a daily race from home to his full-time job and back again so he could to take over from his wife Carol’s caregiver, but on April 8, 2014, he got a letter from Carol’s Medicaid HMO saying that it was reducing her care

Seminole County Legal Aid partners with library to serve more veterans

More than 43 years ago Juan Silva, 60, served in the U.S. Army in Korea, but today he is fighting an ongoing battle to gain custody of his grandchildren. His ally in this struggle is Silvia McLain, executive director of the Seminole County Bar Association Legal Aid Society, who has

Pro bono help brings a mother’s six-year wait to a joyful end

  For six years, Kimberly Conyers did everything in her power to regain custody of her son, writing letter after letter to the judge in her case, but it wasn’t until she got pro bono help – both from a lawyer and a psychologist – that she was able to

Family Law Section gives its third $75,000 gift to The Florida Bar Foundation

With a unanimous vote of its Executive Council Jan. 30, The Florida Bar’s Family Law Section approved its third $75,000 donation to The Florida Bar Foundation since 2012. Section Chair Maria C. Gonzalez presented the gift at the Foundation’s March 4 board meeting along with David Manz, who as Family

Foundation-funded project protects the rights of chronically ill children to specialty care

When Jennifer Rodriguez got a call from a nurse case manager last May asking her to take a survey about her son Alex, 11, she had no idea that her responses could get him tossed from a Medicaid specialty managed care program for chronically ill and disabled kids. “I answered

A decade of partnership puts an end to 275 years behind bars

When James Bain embraced his sisters on the steps of the Polk County, Fla., courthouse on Dec. 17, 2009, as a free man for the first time in 35 years, he had served more time in prison than anyone ever exonerated through DNA testing. On March 4, 2016, 42 years

Foundation CEO Bruce Blackwell to receive 2016 Tobias Simon Pro Bono Award

Florida Bar news story Attorney Bruce B. Blackwell of Winter Park, a founding partner of King, Blackwell, Zehnder & Wermuth, P.A., in Orlando and now CEO/executive director of The Florida Bar Foundation, is the recipient of the 2016 Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award, the highest statewide pro bono award.

Video Spotlight: Saving Keith and Vickki’s Dream Home

  Keith and Vickki Jordan’s money woes started the way they do for many couples – with a job loss – and soon overtook them in a perfect storm of shrinking income and rising expenses that almost cost them their Jacksonville home. Not long after Vickki lost her job, Keith,

A long legal road leads to a permanent home for Brittney

  Brittney Carroll, 11, smiles broadly and extends her hand in greeting to welcome a visitor to her family’s Tallahassee farm, where she and her six siblings help care for a menagerie that includes dogs, cats, ponies, goats, chickens, rabbits, a donkey and a cow named Buttercream. Born prematurely and

Laid off legal aid attorney continued pro bono on case ending with $17.4 million verdict

by Nancy Kinnally To most Floridians the town of Felda in Hendry County is little more than an overlooked dot on a state map, but to five women who worked in the Moreno Farms packing house there it became their own little corner of Hell. Maria del Carmen Aguilar, one

Pro bono attorney helps families struggling with debt

Frank Eaton has been practicing large, complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases around the country since 1990, based first in New York and now in Miami. While attending a bankruptcy conference where the Chief Bankruptcy Judge extolled the importance of pro bono assistance for general consumers who need — but can