Florida foster youth shine at the Capitol

The abuse Manushka Gilet suffered from the age of 12 at the hands of her stepfather did not stop her from engaging in a wide range of school-sponsored activities as a teenager; it took the laws then governing the foster-care system to do that. “I’m a very active child. I

Protecting the legal rights of Florida’s migrant farmworkers

Pedro Hernandez Perez, 51, has had his wallet stolen twice once from a migrant farmworker boarding house and the second time on a bus. “They took my money and my documents and left me without anything,” Perez said. Each time he was robbed Perez had to apply for replacement of

Children’s legal services projects in dire need of funding

A single mother waiting tables in Daytona Beach, Michelle Gonska rarely saw two days go by without getting a call from her first-grader’s school about his behavior. “I was trying to work, and the school was calling me every other day because they could not handle him,” she said. “I

Elizabeth Guzman and Ericka Garcia: The warrior and the soldier

At 4 feet 9 inches tall and 85 pounds, Elizabeth Guzman is dead serious when she calls herself a warrior. “God only gives us what we can bear,” she said. “I wish I weren’t so strong.” The 40-year-old cancer survivor is not referring to her ongoing life-or-death battle with disease.

After losing her life savings, Miami woman gets a fresh start

On the verge of 75, Caroline Pennington found herself starting all over again. After a lifetime of hard work and solo parenting, the former marketing executive was looking forward to a comfortable retirement until she fell victim to an investment scam that wiped out her half-million-dollar nest egg. “It was

Florida Bar Foundation-funded Equal Justice Works project helps break the cycle of dependency

Amanda Alvarez, 18, comes across as that recent high school grad who racked up a long list of achievements. She has the poise, diction and vocabulary of a student council president. With her long, dark hair, tasteful makeup and neat-as-a-pin pencil skirt, she has the grace and style of a

Federal judge orders state of Florida to cover applied behavioral analysis therapy for autism

At 18 months of age, Karls Gonzalez seemed like any other happy toddler. He would return his mother’s smile, had a budding vocabulary that included words like “mama,” “papa,” and “cookies” and had developed a healthy appetite for solid food. But by the time he turned 2, he had become

Legal aid organizations struggle to retain attorneys cultivated by Bar Foundation and Equal Justice Works

As an Equal Justice Works Fellow advocating for mentally ill prisoners, Cassandra Capobianco uncovered a startling overuse of tear gas and pepper spray in Florida prisons, resulting in serious burns to inmates already suffering from diagnosed psychiatric disorders. “A lot of these clients were burned so badly they required extensive

One student’s path to Stanford

Growing up in San Juan del Rio, Queretaro, a city on Mexico’s central plateau, Leonardo Leal realized from a young age that knowledge would be the key to his future. His grandmother Magdalena raised him until he was 12, and although she had little education herself, she instilled its importance

Positively Pro Bono: Kenneth Jacobs’ story

Kenneth Jacobs held a job his entire adult life until 2008 when he suffered a heart attack. It was the first in a string of serious health complications — including coronary artery disease — that sidelined him from work and left him homeless. “I was always in the hospital,” said

How Ashlyn got her sparkle back

Sparkly. An eager, cheerful learner. Ashlyn Sikes’ teacher used these words to describe the Tallahassee second-grader, who finished out the school year with her best report card ever. ” I love her enthusiasm for school,” commented the teacher. Ashlyn’s parents, Adam and Amy Sikes, are proud of their 8-year-old daughter,

Clearwater affordable housing units saved

Confined to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis, Clearwater, Fla., resident Patricia Redding, 50, had become a prisoner in her own apartment when promised modifications to make it wheelchair accessible and ADA-compliant were never made. Later, when raw sewage backed up into Redding’s unit, the property manager at Norton Apartments also