By Gabrielle Davis
Special to the News

The Florida Bar Foundation has launched a series of local Fellows campaigns through which potential supporters will learn first-hand the difference the Foundation is making in their communities.

The most recent Fellows campaign began in October with the Miami-Dade Young Lawyers Division, where Foundation Fellows Cristina Alonso and Damian Thomas are reaching out to their colleagues to share their unique perspectives on the Foundation’s mission.

The Foundation is the only statewide organization that provides funding for legal aid and promotes improvements in addressing the civil legal needs of the poor. It provides about 30 percent of all funding for legal aid organizations in Florida.

“The attorneys who committed to heading this campaign have witnessed how the Foundation helps ensure access to justice for Florida’s underprivileged and underserved,” said the Foundation’s Annual Giving Manager Michael Cooper. “Perhaps their voluntary bar association has received an Improvements in the Administration of Justice community service grant, or maybe they serve on the board of one of the Foundation’s legal aid grantees. They know the impact the Foundation funding can have in changing people’s lives.”

As a University of Florida law student, Alonso participated in a summer judicial clerkship funded through the Foundation’s Public Service Fellows Program.

Now president of Florida Legal Services and a shareholder with Carlton Fields in Miami, Alonso serves on the Foundation board, and specifically on the committee responsible for approving grants for the Public Service Fellows Program and other programs to promote public service among law students.

Thomas, also a Foundation board member who serves on the Legal Assistance for the Poor and Law Student Assistance committees, said the Foundation should be considered among the top charities for lawyers.

“As an attorney you have an obligation to help people who can’t represent themselves,” said Thomas, partner of Wasserman & Thomas in Miami. “By becoming a Fellow and donating, you’re instrumental in providing legal assistance to the underprivileged and disadvantaged members of our community.”

So far, the Miami-Dade Young Lawyers campaign has gained 30 new Fellows — core supporters who pledge $1,000 to The Florida Bar Foundation Endowment Trust (payable over five years, or 10 years for nonprofit, government, and young lawyers) to ensure the future of legal aid.

To continue its efforts with the campaign, the Foundation held a gathering for new fellows and campaign leaders December 8 in Miami.

In the coming months, the Foundation will roll out similar campaigns in Sarasota, along with campaigns with the Cuban American Bar Association, the Orange County Bar Association, and Miami-Dade County Attorneys.

Timothy M. Ravich, immediate past president of the Dade County Bar Association, said the choice to become involved with the Foundation was a moral one.

“I believe deeply in the ideal of a lawyer-citizen, that attorneys have an obligation to do more than just work in their community. They have an almost exclusive opportunity to enhance the community in which they live,” said Ravich, a board certified aviation lawyer with Clarke Silverglate & Campbell in Miami.

“It’s about ‘Justice for All.’ I certainly support that saying, and anybody else who does should join the Foundation’s cause.”

Learn more about becoming a Florida Bar Foundation Fellow at http://flabarfndn.org/giving/ways-to-give/fellows-program.aspx.

Gabrielle Davis is the communications coordinator for The Florida Bar Foundation and may be reached at gdavis@flabarfndn.org or (407) 843-0045.