Public Defender Service’s Fulton Named 2010 Rosenberg Honoree
The D.C. Bar has chosen Harry Fulton, chief of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia’s (PDS) Mental Health Division, as this year’s recipient of the Beatrice Rosenberg Award for Excellence in Government Service.

The award, which will be presented on April 9 at the 2010 District of Columbia Judicial and Bar Conference, recognizes a member of the Bar who personifies excellence in government service. Rosenberg had a 35-year career in government service at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“It was a shock,” said Fulton upon learning of the honor, adding that it was very kind for someone at PDS to nominate him for the award and that he feels honored to receive it, especially since he is familiar with the work of the award’s namesake, Beatrice “Bea” Rosenberg.

More than three decades ago, Fulton was hired as a staff attorney for the Mental Health Division; within a few years he was selected as division chief, a position he still holds today.

In addition to having overall management of the division, Fulton also maintains a full caseload of court-appointed assignments.

Fulton has insisted on a continuous representation model where the same attorney represents the interests of a client throughout the entire legal proceeding. Using this model, Fulton believes the client benefits from the continuity of representation while the attorney is given the opportunity to get to know the client more in-depth.

He encourages his staff to pursue impact advocacy through work that goes beyond the day-to-day representation of individual clients, and he himself has been a leader in securing fundamental rights for District residents with mental illnesses through class action litigation.

Fulton has been a mentor to more than a dozen attorneys at PDS during his career, many of whom have stayed with PDS for many years while others have gone on to a variety of jobs in government agencies, private practice, the D.C. Superior Court, the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency, and the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility.

In keeping with the exceptional accomplishments of Ms. Rosenberg, nominees must have demonstrated outstanding professional judgment throughout long-term government careers, worked intentionally to share their expertise as mentors to younger government lawyers, and devoted significant personal energies to public or community service.—K.A.

Angel, Vergeer Share 2010 Scoutt Prize
The District of Columbia Bar Foundation has selected Eric Angel and Vytas Vergeer as co-recipients of the 2010 Jerrold Scoutt Prize, recognizing their collaborative efforts to reform pro bono tenant representation in the D.C. Superior Court Landlord and Tenant Branch.

The award, named in honor of the founding partner of Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger, L.L.P. for his longtime support of legal services, will be presented on April 9 at the 2010 District of Columbia Judicial and Bar Conference.

Angel, the legal director of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia since 2001, previously spent two years at the White House Counsel’s Office as associate counsel to President Bill Clinton. He also worked as a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for four years.

Vergeer joined Bread for the City in 1994 as a staff attorney and has been its legal clinic director since 2002. He also spent two years at the National Housing Law Project.

“I was truly surprised, honored, and humbled to receive the call that I was receiving this award. Although Vytas and I happen to be the recipients, I suspect that the award is actually intended to honor our amazing colleagues in the trenches at Bread and Legal Aid who, on a daily basis, stand side by side with our clients fighting for justice and struggling for reform,” Angel said.

Vergeer voiced similar sentiments. “I could not be more honored at receiving this award. It’s much more of a reflection of the work of all the incredible people at Bread for the City than it is of anything I’ve ever done. I’m just deeply thankful to the Bar Foundation; Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger; and D.C.’s entire, amazing public interest community,” he said.

The Scoutt Prize is awarded annually to an attorney who has worked for a significant portion of his or her career at a nonprofit organization, providing direct, hands-on legal services to disadvantaged residents in the District; has demonstrated compassionate concern for his or her clients; and has exhibited a high degree of skill on their behalf.—K.A.

Bar Seeks Nominations for 2010 Awards Ceremony
The D.C. Bar is seeking nominations to recognize outstanding projects and contributions by Bar members at the 2010 Annual Business Meeting and Awards Dinner on Thursday, June 24, at the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, 1127 Connecticut Avenue NW.

The Bar will present its highest honor, the Thurgood Marshall Award, to a Bar member who has a demonstrated excellence, dedication, and commitment to civil liberties or public interest law. The Bar also will present the Frederick B. Abramson Award, which is given in recognition of extraordinary service to the profession.

Bar members also are encouraged to submit nominations for the following awards: Best Bar Project, Best Section, Best Section Community Outreach Project, Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year, and Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year.

The awards will recognize contributions made between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2010.

Award nominations must be submitted by April 2 to D.C. Bar Executive Director Katherine A. Mazzaferri, 1101 K Street NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005-4210, or online at www.dcbar.org/awards.—K.A.

Men of Valor
On December 2 the Olender Foundation held its 24th annual awards ceremony where it honored 23 Holocaust survivors with its Men and Women of Valor Award. Dr. Frank Smith, founding director of the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum, and fellow civil rights activist Reverend Reginald Green received the Advocate for Justice Award, while District of Columbia Court of Appeals Senior Judge Frank Schwelb was honored with the Hero in the Law Award. From left, Smith and Green join former National Football League quarterback and previous Olender Foundation honoree Doug Williams and Olender Foundation president Jack Olender. The foundation, headed by Olender and his wife Lovell, is a nonprofit that seeks to counter poverty and violence as well as promote education and equal justice through its support of local and national organizations.—K.A.

Bar Sections Announce Steering Committee Openings
The D.C. Bar Sections Office is seeking Bar members interested in Steering Committee positions for all 21 sections. Members wishing to be considered should submit a Candidate Interest Form and résumé to the Sections Office by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on February 4. Candidate Interest Forms were mailed and also are available online.

Steering Committee vacancies are for three-year terms. Each section has two or three available positions.

The Sections’ Nominating Committees will review all Candidate Interest Forms to find the best qualified, diverse candidates. Two to three candidates will be nominated for each position. Previous leadership experience with voluntary bar associations or with the Bar’s sections is highly desirable.

The elections will take place in the spring of 2010, and the results will be announced in June. The winning candidates will assume their new Steering Committee roles on July 1, 2010.

For more information about the elections or to view the complete list of vacancies, visit www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/
sections/section_elections/index.cfm.

Board of Governors Endorses Changes to Clients’ Security Fund Rules
At its December 8 meeting the D.C. Bar Board of Governors approved two proposals by the trustees of the Bar’s Clients’ Security Fund to recommend that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals makes revisions to Rule XII of the Rules Governing the Bar and the Board, relating to the Rules of Procedure of the fund.

The fund provides restitution to a former client when a lawyer, who is a Bar member, has been found to have dishonestly retained the client’s money, property, or other thing of value; the trust is funded by an annual appropriation of Bar members’ dues.

The first revision calls for the removal of preconditions or “jurisdictional triggers” that must be present for the fund to reimburse a client. Under Rule XII, the fund has jurisdiction over a claim for reimbursement only if the lawyer has died, has been adjudicated as bankrupt, has been adjudicated as mentally incompetent, has been disbarred or suspended from the practice of law, has voluntarily resigned from the practice of law in the District, has become a judgment debtor of the applicant, has been adjudicated guilty of a crime predicated upon the dishonest conduct, or where the claim has been certified to the trustees by the Bar’s Board of Governors as an appropriate case for consideration. The amendment would eliminate the requirement that one of the preceding conditions must be present before the fund can pay a claimant.

The second proposed amendment would allow the fund to consider claims for reimbursement from claimants who sustained a loss as a result of the dishonest conduct of a lawyer who has been disbarred. The fund would only reimburse applicants if the latter reasonably believed that the lawyer was licensed to practice law in the District at the time he or she was retained, and only if the lawyer had been disbarred for two years or less when retained.

A third proposal by the fund’s trustees, amending the fund’s Rules of Procedure to raise the reimbursement limit per claim from $75,000 to $150,000 and to provide for inflation adjustments, was tabled to allow for a committee led by D.C. Bar President-Elect Ronald S. Flagg to further study the impact of such a change and issue a report to the Board of Governors.—K.A.

Pro Bono Clients Receive Legal Boost From Federal Attorneys
For so many low-income residents of the District of Columbia, a few minutes of legal advice is all they need to start resolving the problems that have literally stalled their lives. The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program Advice & Referral Clinic, with the help of volunteer lawyers, provides this essential service on the second Saturday of every month.

On December 12, more than 12 employees of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division staffed the clinic. Among the volunteers was Tony West, the division’s assistant attorney general, who worked alongside his colleagues to offer free, one-on-one legal assistance to about 30 clients on issues from debt collection to housing.

Unlike lawyers in the private sector, federal government attorneys are presented with unique challenges to providing pro bono services, including having to use their own resources and personal time.

“Federal government employees are public servants, so every day when they get up and go to work, they’re serving the public. It’s a service that’s often unsung and underappreciated, but it’s critically important to so much of what we do,” West said.

Despite the demands, pro bono work is an important aspect of their professional responsibilities as attorneys, and one that they enjoy. “We had more people who wanted to come to the clinic than we had room for,” West said. “As a result of that, we’re probably going to increase the Civil Division’s commitment to the Advice & Referral Clinic because we’ve had such widespread interest from our lawyers.”

Pro bono work among federal government workers has been steadily growing since the creation in 1996 of the Federal Government Pro Bono Program, which further encourages and supports government lawyers in their initiatives. In August 2009 the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service awarded the Federal Government Pro Bono Program with its annual Pro Bono Publico Award.

The recognition, while a great honor, was not as gratifying as the experience itself, West noted. “Each person I worked with—whether it was a child custody issue or a landlord/tenant issue or some other housing issue—each person felt that [he or she] had received quality legal representation,” West said. “More important than that, they felt that somebody was listening to their problem and trying to help them make sense of it in a way that gave them the ability to begin to solve it. I found that to be…just a very rewarding experience.”—T.S.

Bar Members Must Complete Practice Course
New members of the District of Columbia Bar are reminded that they have 12 months from the date of admission to complete the required course on District of Columbia practice offered by the D.C. Bar Continuing Legal Education Program.

D.C. Bar members who have been inactive, retired, or voluntarily resigned for five years or more also are required to complete the course if they are seeking to switch or be reinstated to active member status. In addition, members who have been suspended for five years or more for nonpayment of dues or late fees are required to take the course to be reinstated.

New members who do not complete the mandatory course requirement within 12 months of admission receive a noncompliance notice and a final 60-day window in which to comply. After that date, the Bar administratively suspends individuals who have not completed the course and forwards their names to the clerks of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, and to the Office of Bar Counsel.

Suspensions become a permanent part of members’ records. To be reinstated, one must complete the course and pay a $50 fee.

The preregistration fee is $219; the on-site fee is $279. Course dates are February 2, March 6, April 13, May 8, June 8, July 10, August 10, September 11, October 5, November 6, and December 7. Advanced registration is encouraged.

For more information or to register online, visit www.dcbar.org/mandatorycourse.

BPR Requests Volunteers for Hearing Committees
The Board on Professional Responsibility (BPR) is seeking volunteers for its Hearing Committees. The committees hear lawyer discipline cases and draft reports with findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommended sanctions.

Hearing Committee members, composed of D.C. Bar members and members of the public, are appointed periodically by the BPR and are eligible to serve two consecutive three-year terms.

Interested parties should submit a cover letter and résumé to Elizabeth J. Branda, Executive Attorney, Board on Professional Responsibility, 430 E Street NW, Suite 138, Washington, DC 20001. For more information, call 202-638-4290.

D.C. Circuit Seeks Nominees for Gribbon Pro Bono Award
On January 18 the Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit Judicial Conference began taking nominations for its fifth annual Daniel M. Gribbon Pro Bono Advocacy Award.

The award, endowed by Gribbon’s family and friends, honors his lifetime commitment to and strong support for pro bono legal services. Individuals or firms that have demonstrated distinguished advocacy before the district court in a pro bono matter that concluded between July 1, 2008, and December 31, 2009, are eligible for the award.

Interested parties may nominate themselves, and nonwinning nominees from previous years can resubmit their applications if they meet the criteria.

All nominations must be in writing and are limited to six pages. They may also include a description—up to two pages—of the pro bono work and letters of support. Nominees should not attach pleadings or court filings. Descriptions must be received no later than noon on March 17, while supporting letters will be accepted through noon on March 31.

Nomination materials may be e-mailed to Standing Committee member Scott A. Memmott at smemmott@morganlewis.com. Nominees also may submit the original plus 10 copies of their documents to: Scott A. Memmott, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004.

For additional inquiries, contact Memmott at 202-739-5098 or at the previously listed e-mail address.—T.S.

Recession Severely Limits Access to Justice, Study Shows
On December 9 the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission and the D.C. Consortium of Legal Services Providers released a report showing that even as the number of low-income residents seeking assistance grew in 2009, legal service resources were slashed.

The study, “Rationing Justice: The Effect of the Recession on Access to Justice in the District of Columbia,” revealed that the financial crisis has had dramatic effects on funding for legal aid programs. There was a 60 percent drop in Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) funds, a 20 percent cut in local government support for legal services, and a more than $1 million decrease in charitable donations and volunteer services.

The “devastating” budget cuts in 2009 are likely to only get worse in 2010. “It’s a very alarming time,” said Jessica Rosenbaum, the executive director of the Access to Justice Commission. She noted that throughout the year, legal aid organizations made provision of services a top priority, but to make that happen they instituted furloughs, layoffs, and salary cuts.

“The concern is that in 2010, all those options are gone. They don’t have reserves to go into again. When you have to cut, there isn’t that much to cut. You’re cutting into the bone,” Rosenbaum added.

At the time of the report’s release, an education reform project had been eliminated and the counseling services for a domestic violence program were reduced. In addition, 21 of the 170 lawyers working for legal aid organizations in the District, along with at least 30 nonlawyer staff, had been laid off. The outlook for 2010 also looks poor without the help of both private and public funding.

“We already have a $700,000 cut … That means that in 2010, we already have a loss of another eight lawyers or so beyond the 21 that we already lost,” said Peter Edelman, chair of the commission. “Whatever happens, if IOLTA is still down, if law firms and the lawyers don’t come through, we don’t get any help there, it’s possible that those things are even worse.”

While deep cuts have been made, the demand for assistance increased 20 percent over the past year as the recession’s effects took their toll. Foreclosures went up and debt collection was on the rise.

“This is about the needs of real people,” Edelman said. “This is about people who are going to lose their apartment if they don’t get a lawyer. Women who are victims of domestic violence won’t be able to escape that situation if they don’t get a lawyer. People are going to be denied benefits erroneously because they don’t get a lawyer. This is not abstract. Every one of these situations multiplies itself. It has a cascading effect on families.”

To read the full report, go to www.dcaccesstojustice.org/index.html.—T.S.

Brooksley Born Receives American Bar Foundation Award
On February 6 legal legend Brooksley E. Born will be honored with the American Bar Foundation’s (ABF) 2010 Outstanding Service Award during its 54th Fellows Annual Awards Reception and Banquet in Orlando, Florida.

The award recognizes individuals who have personified the highest principles and traditions of the legal profession, and demonstrated a lifetime of service to the public.

“She’s been a wonderful lawyer who makes all other lawyers proud,” said David S. Houghton, chair of the Fellows of the ABF. “If you were going to draw up a lawyer’s life and do it from a fictional standpoint and say, ‘What do we want in someone who would receive the Outstanding Service Award,’ it would fit Brooksley Born to a T.”

Throughout her career, Born championed women’s rights and the rights of the indigent. She blazed a trail for other female lawyers, serving as the first female chair of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. Born also founded the ABA Women’s Caucus and helped establish the National Women’s Law Center. Along with lawyer Marna S. Tucker, Born taught one of the nation’s first “Women and the Law” courses.

“From my first days as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., I heard about and observed the now ‘legendary’ work of Brooksley Born on behalf of women. She has been of extraordinary support to women in the profession within her firm and the ABA, acting as a mentor to so many,” said Carolyn B. Lamm, president of the ABA. “She is always there to support women by recommending them to positions, to advocate for their advancement, and to highlight what legal changes are a must to permit or facilitate their progress. I applaud her selection for the American Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Service Award.”

As chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Born also fought to bring greater transparency to the over-the-counter derivatives market. While she spent much of her tremendous career as an attorney for Arnold & Porter LLP, Born actively worked on pro bono projects and volunteered her time to help serve the underprivileged.

Added Houghton, “This is a person who gives, gives up her time, gives her energy and her intellect, and gives her substance to the public and to the profession and to the law. She’s a remarkable, remarkable person.”

“It means a great deal to me to be recognized with the Outstanding Service Award. I think the legal profession is a service profession, service to clients, service to the administration of justice, service to the public through pro bono work and public interest work,” Born said. “I’m extremely flattered and touched to be included in a group of awardees that includes such lions of the bar as John Pickering and William Coleman.”—T.S.

BADC Acknowledges Honorees
The Bar Association of the District of Columbia (BADC) held its 138th Annual Banquet on December 5 where Judge Paul Friedman (left) of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, joined here by WilmerHale LLP partner Jamie Gorelick, was recognized as Judicial Honoree. BADC presented its Constance L. Belfiore Quality of Life Award to Luxenberg, Johnson, & Dickens, PC; the Annice M. Wagner Pioneer Award to Karen Lockwood, a principal at The Lockwood Group, LLC; Lawyer of the Year Award to Channing Phillips, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; and Young Lawyer of the Year Award to David Hawkins, an associate at Vinson & Elkins L.L.P.—K.A.

Banneker Science, Youth Law Fairs Return in February
The D.C. Bar Sections Office is seeking volunteers for the annual Benjamin Banneker Academic High School Science Fair on February 26, an event the Bar’s Intellectual Property Law Section has been sponsoring since 1996.

This year’s fair will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Banneker High School, 800 Euclid Street NW.

Despite the subject matter, volunteers do not need a science degree or background to serve as judges. Volunteers will attend a prefair briefing before judging the students’ science projects, which will be divided into 12 categories.

The annual Youth Law Fair also will be held in February, with this year’s theme focused on teen dating violence. The event is sponsored by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the D.C. Bar Litigation Section, and is cosponsored by various Bar sections. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on February 27 at the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue NW.

For more information on these events, contact the Sections Office at 202-626-3463 or e–mail outreach@dcbar.org.—K.A.

Pro Bono Partnerships Pave Path for Building Foster Families
Children wearing their Sunday best filled the balloon-adorned atrium of the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse on November 21, marked as the 23rd Annual Adoption Day in the District of Columbia.

The special ceremony at the courthouse, jointly celebrated by the D.C. Superior Court and the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA), saw the adoption decrees for 36 children, ages 1 to 16, being signed and finalized. Paula Lancaster and her 2-year-old daughter Zuri were among those brought together as a family that day.

“We know what we do as adoptive parents, but to be acknowledged for it in this manner makes you realize that it’s something that’s bigger than just you. I’m sure all the other families felt the same way. It was such an exciting day and very emotional; you really experience all the emotions rolled into one,” she said.

Lancaster did not make it to that moment alone, though. Like many others, Lancaster sought pro bono legal assistance when she decided she wanted to legally adopt Zuri, who was only 8 days old when Lancaster began to foster her.

Partners in Uniting Families
The Superior Court directed Lancaster to the Children’s Law Center (CLC) which, among other services, provides free legal assistance to foster parents and relatives who want to adopt, or obtain guardianship of a child who is in the child welfare system or at risk of entering foster care.

In addition to its in-house attorneys, CLC works with more than 300 pro bono attorneys from more than 70 area law firms. Since 2001, the organization has placed at least 100 caregiver pro bono cases a year.

After Lancaster contacted CLC and completed an intake by phone, CLC gave her case to Joanne Ludovici-Lint, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP who had taken two previous pro bono caregiver cases from CLC. (Ludovici-Lint worked with fellow McDermott partner Robert Zelnick and several summer associates on the Lancaster case.)

For Ludovici-Lint, providing pro bono services for CLC allowed her to merge her love of children with her desire to give back to the local community, something she does not get to do through her day-to-day work dealing with international business law.

“I came in with no experience with adoption work, or even really trial work—most of my cases on the business side settle before trial,” she said.

“In the beginning you do feel a little like a fish out of water; it can be overwhelming when you think that you’ve got the future of an at-risk child at stake, but working with CLC makes it a less stressful experience because they really are there for you.”

CLC Executive Director Judith Sandalow said her organization performs a detailed intake so that the pro bono attorney would know as much as possible about a case when he or she gets it. CLC also holds caregiver trainings for pro bono attorneys where they are provided with a manual on family law.

“We help orient people to family court in a nuts and bolts way; we try to make it easy and give people all the tools they need. We’re also here to mentor—we want to make sure the attorneys feel supported and can do a good job,” Sandalow said.

‘Human Element’ in Law
Ludovici-Lint said CLC was present in the entire process, which can be somewhat long, especially if it involves a contested adoption, as did all three cases she handled. Although the adoptions took from one year to a year and a half, Ludovici-Lint said it wasn’t the case of having to work on them every day or even every month.

While there are permanency hearings to attend frequently, she said the bulk of the work comes from the discovery and pretrial process where, in a contested adoption, an attorney spends time talking to the opposing counsel and attempting to get the birth parents to waive their parental rights.

Even when an adoption is uncontested, an attorney still has to make the case that the adoption is in the best interest of the child, and then complete an evidentiary hearing and background research.

In the District of Columbia parental rights often aren’t terminated until the adoption process begins. Thus, the termination of parental rights and the adoption are usually part of one trial.

Sandalow said this is where it takes a certain level of thoughtfulness and subtlety on the part of the attorney. Even if the birth parents’ rights should be terminated and the adoption finalized, Sandalow said that doesn’t necessarily mean the birth parents and their children should no longer have any type of relationship, especially if the child is older.

Lancaster’s adoption case also took more time because Zuri has health issues, which meant that the McDermott team was involved in negotiating a subsidy package from CFSA.

Many adoptive families are eligible for financial support post-adoption to take care of a child with special needs. In these cases, there is a built-in subsidy provided by CFSA that can be negotiated, as in Lancaster’s case.

Despite the number of hours she put in, Ludovici-Lint said the CLC caregiver cases are some of the most fulfilling she has ever had.

Ludovici-Lint credits much of that to people such as Lancaster, the pre-adoptive clients who “are just amazing people—they bring a very human element to the practice of law.”

“You get to work with amazing clients and great mentors and you also get to know the judges who, in my experience, are very involved in these cases, and the social workers and the guardian ad litems,” she added.

Fulfillment in Pro Bono Work
Many pro bono attorneys feel a similar sense of fulfillment from working on caregiver cases, Sandalow said.

“Part of the fun for pro bono lawyers [working on these cases] is that they get to meet some wonderful people they wouldn’t get to meet otherwise,” she said.

Sandalow said these cases can be particularly good for young associates because “they’re relatively small pieces of litigation that a young lawyer with good supervision can do and it gives them a chance to be in court, make decisions, to put on their client as a witness, and maybe cross-examine a birth parent.”

And while a long adoption case could last 100 or more hours, there are simpler custody cases that call for half that time.

The result of Ludovici-Lint’s hard work was there for all to see at the Adoption Day ceremony when Lancaster became Zuri’s legal parent. Watching that happen at the courthouse were Ludovici-Lint, Zelnick, Sandalow, and Lancaster’s family, including an 11-year-old daughter who Lancaster adopted previously.

“I’ve always been ‘Mommy’ to Zuri, but just knowing that there is no more court to have to go to and that we could finally just be a family made a big difference,” Lancaster said.

In addition to the Adoption Day ceremony at the D.C. Superior Court, Lancaster and Zuri also participated in an event a day earlier held by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships to mark the 10th anniversary of National Adoption Day, featuring HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“I felt proud and privileged to represent Paula; she was one of only two families chosen to be the face of National Adoption Day in front of Secretary Sebelius, and you had members of Congress and the White House there and it was a really positive experience for me as I know it was for Paula,” Ludovici-Lint said.

To learn more about the Children’s Law Center and its pro bono opportunities, including guardian and custody cases, contact Lise B. Adams, director of CLC’s Family Permanency Project, at 202-467-4900, ext. 568, or ladams@childrenslawcenter.org, or visit www.childrenslawcenter.org.—K.A.

Reach D.C. Bar staff writers Kathryn Alfisi and Thai Phi Stone at kalfisi@dcbar.org and tstone@dcbar.org, respectively.