Redmond receives the Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award
Patricia Redmond said her parents taught her two great lessons that have stayed with her throughout her life — embrace every opportunity to make a difference in someone else’s life and while life is not always fair, always strive for fairness and justice.
It’s those lessons that inspired Redmond to become a champion for pro bono legal service beginning in the 1970s and led to her being named the recipient of the 2019 Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award, the state’s highest pro bono honor.
The award was presented by Chief Justice Charles Canady February 7 at the Supreme Court in Tallahassee.
“This award is the pinnacle of my professional life,” said Redmond, a bankruptcy attorney and a shareholder in the Miami office of Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson.
The award commemorates Miami civil rights lawyer Tobias Simon, who died in February 1982, and is intended to encourage and recognize extraordinary contributions by Florida lawyers in making legal services available to the indigent and to focus public awareness on the substantial voluntary services rendered by Florida lawyers.
Also honored during the ceremony was the Tampa office of Foley & Lardner, which received the Chief Justice’s Law Firm Commendation; Judge Nina Ashenafi-Richardson of Leon County, who was the recipient of the Distinguished Judicial Service Award; Roy B. Dalton, Jr., a judge in the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Florida in Orlando, the recipient of the Chief Justice’s Distinguished Federal Judicial Service Award; and The Young Lawyers Section of the Orange County Bar Association, the recipient of the 2019 Voluntary Bar Association Pro Bono Award.
A lawyer from each circuit also was recognized with The Florida Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Awards, and Tori Simmons of Tampa received the 2019 Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division Pro Bono Service Award.
“To our award winners, let me say this, by your example, you teach all members of our profession that there is no greater cause in serving justice than being a voice to those who otherwise would be voiceless,” Canady said.
Redmond began taking pro bono cases two years after she graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1978. Over the years, she has dedicated 200 to 400 hours each year to pro bono service.
Redmond works closely with the Dade County Bar Association and its ally Dade Legal Aid/Put Something Back, the oldest civil legal services provider in South Florida. Redmond serves on the association’s board of directors and has been an active volunteer for decades. Stephanie Carman, president of the Dade County Bar, says Redmond “never says no to any cause, case, committee, or consideration. She just shows up, does her work, and leads by extreme example.”
Chief Justice Canady told the packed courtroom that one case illustrates the depth of that commitment: the wedding dresses.
In a story covered in the “Wall Street Journal” and other media, Redmond went above and beyond the call of duty after Philadelphia retailer Alfred Angelo filed for bankruptcy in July 2017. Redmond, who was representing Alfred Angelo, was flooded with desperate emails from brides whose gowns, accessories, and bridesmaid dresses were locked inside closed stores.
“I felt I had to do something to get the dresses to these women,” she said.
Working with former store managers and employees, Redmond gained limited access to the stores. She then arranged for local customers to pick up the gowns and accessories they had already purchased. She even arranged a short-term loan to have a shipment from China off-loaded on the West Coast to fill the brides’ orders.
In addition to providing direct pro bono legal services, Redmond also works to promote those services.
In 1999, Redmond and Judge Laurel Isicoff started the bankruptcy clinic at St. Thomas University School of Law, where Redmond still mentors students while serving pro bono clients.
A similar clinical program was added to the University of Miami in 2003, and Redmond now serves as director of the Eleanor R. and Judge A. Jay Cristol Bankruptcy Pro Bono Assistance Clinic at that university — without compensation.
As an adjunct professor of law at the University of Miami and St. Thomas University schools of law, Redmond also recruits students to participate in the pro bono programs of the Bankruptcy Bar Association of the Southern District of Florida.
Redmond said teaching has provided her an opportunity to mentor hundreds of students and “teach them what their obligations are as lawyers, to clients, to those who don’t have the opportunity or the resources to get representation” and the experience has changed her life.
“My students inspire me every day,” she said. I didn’t even understand how important it was to mentor and interact with students until one day two students said to me ‘WWPRD.’”
Confused, Redmond asked what that meant, to which the students replied, “What we say is, ‘What Would Professor Redmond Do.’”
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, I thought this was an opportunity, but this is really a responsibility,’” Redmond said. “By being a good lawyer, by taking pro bono cases, by being professional, I can teach them much better than I ever could with words what they should be doing.”
