Jacksonville attorney Carrington “Rusty” Madison Mead will receive the 2021 Pro Bono Award for the 4th Judicial Circuit from the state Supreme Court at a Jan. 28 ceremony in Tallahassee.
He was nominated for the award by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, the Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association and the state Guardian ad Litem Office.
A volunteer with JALA for almost 20 years Mead has participated in civil legal assistance clinics, group information clinics and Ask-A-Lawyer free legal advice clinics.
Mead donated almost 470 hours of pro bono time through his assistance with about 80 outreach and clinic events and almost 80 full representation cases.
He is a founding member of the Florida Association of LGBT Lawyers and Allies. He helped create the bimonthly Name Change Clinic and serves as the expert resource for the assistance program.
Mead also is a referral attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, American Civil Liberties Union and GLAAD, the national nongovernmental media monitoring organization founded in 1985 as a protest against defamatory coverage of LGBT people.
He assists with the Guardian ad Litem Defending Best Interest Project and, in his third year of volunteering with the project, has spent about 95 hours on 12 cases.
Mead “has demonstrated a profound level of commitment and support to individuals with need in our local community as well as to helping further the education and advancement of young lawyers in their pursuit of helping others,” said Angela Scott, Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association member, in the ceremony program released Jan. 12 by the court.