by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
Thomas Slater, an attorney with Pajcic & Pajcic, has been on the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s (JALA) board of directors nine of the past 15 years. This year, however, he will assume the leadership role as president of the board.
Slater practices law in the areas of automobile liability, trucking law, aviation law, premises liability, insurance and medical malpractice. But outside of his practice, he said he also enjoys giving his time to those who are less fortunate and cannot afford legal help.
“I moved up the (JALA) leadership chain the past three years,” said Slater who was on JALA’s board from 1993-99 and became a board member again three years ago. “It is a great use of time to be involved in the community and provide services to those less fortunate.
“That is very important to me.”
Slater has been involved with some pro bono work with JALA this past year. One case in particular, involving an elderly woman who was deaf, hit closer to home with Slater, because his parents and his sister are deaf. Slater explained that in the case, the woman’s son took $120,000 of her money and would not let her get it if she needed it.
“She was elderly and disabled and we filed a suit against her son,” he said. “And the son caved in.”
In the 1980s, Slater spent time on the board of the Florida School of the Deaf and Blind. Slater’s parents were teachers at the school and have since retired.
Slater has several goals he would like to accomplish while he is JALA’s board president.
“One thing that is very important to me is to continue to build on current relationships and start new relationships with the legal community in our outlying counties,” he said.
Those counties include St. Johns, Clay and Nassau counties.
“It is important to me that we make JALA more well known in those counties,” said Slater, explaining that JALA does work in those counties even though it is called Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.
Slater and the President of JALA, Michael Figgins, are planning to attend the different bar association meetings in each of those counties. The first one they will be attending is Clay County’s Bar Association meeting on Feb. 1. While at the bar meetings, they want to help increase pro bono participation from those areas.
“We also want to meet with the judges in those outlying counties,” he said.
Slater wants to find out what JALA has done well, what can be done better and if there are any changes they would like to see.
Several years ago, JALA initiated a capital campaign where large law firms committed to donating a certain amount of money over three to five years.
“Now that we don’t have the capital campaign going on anymore, we want to ask those firms if they would like to continue donating money to JALA each year,” he said. “They are probably in a habit of giving that money each year, we just want to ask to see if they can continue to do that.
“We want to make sure a stable cash flow is coming into the organization.”
Slater said he is going to continue to educate the city that it is important for them to fund JALA.
“Cities in the outlying counties have been fantastic,” he said. “The city (of Jacksonville) is a good and generous partner, and I want to make sure they continue to be a good partner.”
Slater said he is happy that he works for a firm that encourages involvement in the community
“What we do is so important,” he said. “We serve as a last defense and if we weren’t here, people would be in a world of hurt.”
Slater was born and raised in St. Augustine and received a bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Florida. He received his juris doctorate degree from the University of Florida College of Law. Aside from serving on JALA’s board, Slater also is a member of the board for the Jacksonville Speech and Hearing Center on Laura Street.