Bradley Arant Boult Cummings issued the following announcement on Aug. 5.
Bradley is pleased to announce that the firm has received the 2019 Alabama State Bar Pro Bono Award in the Law Firm category. The firm was honored at the Alabama State Bar Annual Meeting in Point Clear, Ala.
“We are tremendously honored to be recognized by the Alabama State Bar for our attorneys’ and staff members’ work and ongoing commitment to pro bono service in the communities where we live and service our clients,” said Bradley Pro Bono Counsel Tiffany Graves. “Helping to ensure that everyone has equal access to justice is vitally important to everyone at Bradley.”
Bradley was selected to receive the award by the Alabama State Bar Committee on Volunteer Lawyer Programs. The award recognizes outstanding pro bono efforts of attorneys, mediators, law firms and law students who are actively donating time to the civil representation of those who cannot otherwise afford legal counsel. The award also honors individuals who encourage greater legal representation in and acceptance of pro bono cases.
Through Bradley’s pro bono program, the firm’s attorneys devote a significant amount of time to pro bono work and community service. In 2018, the firm’s attorneys and staff performed more than 19,800 hours of pro bono service valued at more than $7 million. The firm also donated more than $900,000 to nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations last year. In Alabama alone, Bradley’s attorneys contributed more than 12,000 hours in pro bono legal services last year, serving approximately 175 clients in both civil and criminal matters. Of particular note:
-The firm’s attorneys contributed more than 5,000 hours that helped to exonerate Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin after he spent more than a decade on Florida’s death row for being wrongfully convicted of murdering two women in 2004.
-Bradley worked with the YWCA of Birmingham, providing pro bono legal services to low-income individuals seeking to obtain protection from abuse orders (PFAs).
-Bradley’s Birmingham office began a corporate pro bono partnership with the legal department of Encompass Health to create a new help desk to provide free legal services to residents of Birmingham’s Woodlawn neighborhood. The firm’s attorneys also regularly help staff the Volunteer Lawyers Birmingham’s Domestic Relations, Civil Veterans’ and Homeless Help Desks.
-Attorneys contributed pro bono legal services to clients who sought assistance through the Volunteer Lawyers Birmingham’s Patent Pro Bono Program.
-Attorneys in the firm’s Huntsville, Ala., office represented the interests of federal criminal defendants in several pro bono matters. These included counseling a federal prisoner through his collateral attack on a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence in the U.S. Court of Appeals, and drafting an amicus brief on behalf of the National Association for Public Defense in support of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court on a critical Fourth Amendment issue.
-The firm’s Huntsville attorneys also regularly advise clients on consumer, landlord-tenant and family law cases through the Madison County Volunteer Lawyers Program, and counsel clients of The Catalyst Center for Business & Entrepreneurship, a non-profit formed to assist small businesses and individuals interested in starting small businesses.
Original source can be found here.