Young Lawyers have been busy this month successfully completing two worthy projects in one jam-packed day of volunteering in the Jacksonville community! On Feb. 1, YLS held its annual Holiday in January Project (OK, technically Holiday in “February” this year) to benefit local foster children. Due in large part to the tremendous financial support we received from many Jacksonville law firms, we were once again able to exceed our goal of providing not just multiple presents to each child, but a new bicycle as well. In some instances, the bikes came complete with free lessons on how to ride for the new owners. With the assistance and encouragement of our volunteers, a visit from Santa Claus, and the contributions from local firms, we touched the lives of many children in our community. Special thanks to YLS chair, “our” Troy Smith (Rogers Towers) who not only collected the money, bought the bikes, transported them to the party, but served as “handy-man” to adjust the bikes to custom fit their new owners. I also want to thank our Young Lawyer volunteers including our co-chair extraordinaire Geddes Anderson (Liles Gavin), Alan Pickert (Brown Terrell), Kendra Bunn (Ludwig & Bunn), Ted Pina and his son Matt (Brown Terrell), and Mark Calvin and his daughter Meg (Brown Terrell), as well as the many other friends and volunteers.
On the other side of town, more Young Lawyers were executing on another volunteer opportunity - the Special Olympics Softball Toss. Once again, this event was a complete success thanks to the sunshine and hundreds of volunteers. Our YLS chair, Kevin Cook (Bedell Dittmar) did a spectacular job of organizing our volunteers and coordinating this event. Special thanks go out to Bolles for hosting the event and to the volunteers who included several players, parents and the coach of the Jacksonville Womens All-Star Olympic softball team, several Young Lawyers, including Patrick Coll and Rita Nichols (of the Bedell Firm), Eric Hostetler (Hiday & Ricke), and Joni Boyd-Abner-Magnusson (who vehemently denies being a lawyer), and many, many more. The next Special Olympics event will be bowling and will be held sometime in October. For information on how to volunteer, contact
Kevin Cook at 353-0211.
Special Invitation from Judge Timothy Corrigan., who is once again extending an invitation to Young Lawyers to participate in a special Chester Bedell Inn of Court presentation featuring Justice Major Harding as the speaker. For those of you unfamiliar with the Inns of Court program, this offers a unique opportunity for Young Lawyers to spend quality time with our Federal and State Court Judges in a casual setting with a goal of becoming more effective advocates and counselors. You will have dinner in small groups and will no doubt be entertained with colorful war stories (all true, I’m sure) and pearls of wisdom from more experienced lawyers. This event is scheduled for Feb. 27 at the Adams Mark Hotel. The agenda includes “mingling” at 5:30 p.m., dinner at 6 p.m. with the program starting at 7 p.m. Because of the need to keep the dinner groups small, this opportunity is limited to only 20 young lawyers on a first come, first serve basis. The cost for the dinner is $26. The first 20 people to make reservations will be permitted to attend. For reservations, contact Sherri Worman (Rogers Towers) at 346-5554, or [email protected].