Education: 1998: J.D., Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University; 1993: B.A., University of Hartford.

Career in Brief: Prior to entering private practice, I held positions with nonprofit organizations that fueled my passion for public interest work. During law school, I participated in the John Jay Legal Services Criminal Defense Clinic and, upon graduating, joined the Legal Aid Society in the Bronx, serving there from 1998 to 2000. These organizations are dedicated to representing low-income individuals and families, based on the belief that no one should be denied access to justice because of poverty. I entered private legal practice thereafter, but those experiences drove my longstanding pro bono commitment, including my current leadership of the Gibbons Cares Pro Bono Platform.

What led you to focus your practice on pro bono matters? My family instilled in me the importance of giving back. Throughout my childhood, my mother volunteered through the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and included me whenever she could. I often joined her on visits to a local emergency shelter, delivering food and leading children’s activities. I would also help her with projects for local nursing home residents and gather donations for various charities. These lessons and examples stayed with me, and my first professional experiences in the legal industry, working for outstanding public interest nonprofits, were natural outgrowths — as are all the pro bono roles and engagements I have undertaken since entering private practice.

What is your typical day like? In addition to maintaining active criminal defense and child advocacy practices, I spend part of each day coordinating and working on pro bono cases and projects. I took over leadership of the Gibbons Cares Pro Bono Platform in 2013 and, in this role, on a typical day, I might be involved in activities such as seeking out meaningful pro bono work for our attorneys, fielding requests from outside organizations, firm attorneys, and clients with particular pro bono interests, actively managing pro bono cases, coordinating clinics, and mentoring and overseeing associates’ pro bono work. I also conduct pro bono orientation for new employees and lead meetings of the Gibbons Pro Bono Committee.

Education is a critical component of our pro bono program, so a typical day might also find me instructing our attorneys on pro bono issues through Gibbons Academy CLE programs or providing informative pro bono instruction to attorneys outside the firm at various CLE programs.

How have current societal crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and recent civil unrest highlighting racial injustice and inequality, impacted your work? In the past year, working with the firm’s Chief Diversity Officer, I specifically sought out a pro bono project to help those in need due to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly a project helping to address racial inequality, because the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color.

As a result, in 2020, Gibbons launched its partnership with the Small Businesses Need Us initiative of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, to assist women and minority small business owners impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. With restricted operations, interruptions in supply chains, and decreased sales and profits due to pandemic-related shutdowns and slowdowns, these businesses may find themselves unable to afford the services they need to stay afloat, including legal services. Small Businesses Need Us aims to mobilize and activate professionals throughout the business community to pool their experience to help small businesses survive and recover from the impact of COVID-19.

Through the initiative, volunteers with various specialties required for day-to-day business operations, including legal services providers, are organized into cross-functional teams and matched with participating small businesses based on those organizations’ specific needs. All work is done remotely, and volunteers can choose to work on defined projects, donate a set number of hours across projects, answer questions online, or offer in-kind products or services. Gibbons attorneys have the opportunity to assist a variety of women- and minority-owned small business enterprises in a wide range of legal practice areas, including corporate, employment, real estate, intellectual property, and data privacy and security, among other types of legal services these businesses may need.

More broadly, the Gibbons Pro Bono Program has always been committed to addressing critical community needs and serving those who cannot afford legal services or are otherwise underrepresented, focusing on constituencies and needs that include victims of domestic violence, children with special needs, military personnel and first responders, homeless and tenants’ rights advocacy, prisoners’ rights and reentry issues, and advocacy for asylum seekers.

What do you enjoy most about your role? What are the greatest challenges? I enjoy being able to make a meaningful difference in the life of someone who otherwise may not have any legal help. For example, right before the COVID-19 pandemic, I attended a clinic to assist veterans. My work should have ended with the clinic, but I wanted to continue working on my client’s case because I knew I could help, and if he tried to handle it alone, he might not have gotten the result he wanted. I feel very fortunate to be an attorney in a position to help and to have the support of my firm.

As for challenges, I get calls all the time from people desperately needing help. I want to help everyone, but there is not enough time in the day, especially because I do not have a full-time pro bono practice, and we typically take on pro bono matters only from our partner legal services organizations.

What special knowledge or skills should an attorney seek to develop in preparing for a pro bono counsel role? When I first took on my role, I wanted to familiarize myself with all the legal practice areas covering the pro bono cases Gibbons handles. Though I had experience in many relevant practice areas, I underwent wide-ranging training in key areas I was less familiar with and then began taking on cases in those areas. With this experience under my belt, I felt more comfortable guiding other attorneys in their pro bono work.

One of the first pro bono matters I handled after training in 2013 was a special education case, which turned out to be particularly meaningful to me. I represented a severely autistic child who was being denied access to a certain educational program and was quickly regressing. The child’s family vigorously advocated for their son, but to no avail. I was able to successfully negotiate access to the program for the child, and he is now thriving.

I enjoyed this work so much that special education became a focus area of the firm’s pro bono practice and increasingly spilled over into the firm’s billable practice, as we learned this issue is not limited to low-income families. Many parents of children with special needs can become overwhelmed trying to navigate the systems in place to address those challenges. As a result, another firm director with experience in this area and I approached the firm about forming the Gibbons Child Advocacy Team, which officially launched in 2018. The Child Advocacy Team is committed to addressing the legal needs of children and their families, focusing on special education, school discipline, juvenile delinquency, and criminal matters.

What are some things that have surprised you since becoming pro bono counsel? I did not foresee the very large number of people who need pro bono legal assistance and all the areas in which they need help. The demand for pro bono assistance seems only to be growing as people fall into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to witness the huge difference it makes to a pro bono client to have an attorney working on a case in an area that you would not typically associate with pro bono work, such as special education or drivers’ license restoration.

What advice would you give to an attorney considering becoming involved in this type of work? It is amazing work. If you are planning to practice at a law firm, join a firm where pro bono is supported from the top.

Who or what inspires you? Gibbons has ongoing relationships with many legal services organizations, and I see every day all the work they do to make a difference. These organizations, staffed in large part by attorneys who could have had lucrative careers in private practice, not only take on critical cases, but also partner with, train, and encourage outside attorneys and firms to participate in pro bono work, expanding the scope of the good they do. They have to regularly fundraise to keep their operations viable and tackle various other administrative tasks to keep their programs running.

I am also inspired by my Gibbons colleagues when I see the pro bono work they faithfully take on despite their demanding schedules.