News Archive
Legal Aid Conducts Pro Bono Survey of Napa Legal Community as Part of ABA Award to Promote Legal Services for Seniors
Legal Aid of Napa Valley has received a prestigious grant from the American Bar Association to launch its “Pro Bono Initiative: Community Wide Lawyering for Seniors.” The new and innovative pilot project will combine the expertise of Legal Aid attorneys with that of private practitioners to work collaboratively to increase the number of Napa County seniors receiving essential legal representation and education free of charge.
As a part of its grant activities, Legal Aid is currently conducting a survey of the Napa County Bar to help inform it of the types of pro bono activities that active and emeritus attorneys in Napa County find most appealing. To view and complete this survey, click here.
Legal Aid’s key partners in this first-of-its-kind
initiative include Napa County’s three largest law
firms—Dickenson, Peatman & Fogarty,
Gaw Van Male and Coombs & Dunlap, LLP—as well as the Napa County Bar Association and
Napa County Women Lawyers.
The $10,000 grant was awarded by the ABA
Commission on Law & Aging and the Borchard
Foundation Center on Law and Aging under
their 2008-2009 Partnerships in Law and Aging
Program. Legal Aid is one of six PACP grant recipients nationwide.
County Approves Funding for Legal Aid Program to Educate and Assist Seniors Interested in Creating Advance Health Care Directives
On July 22, 2008, the Napa County Board of Supervisors approved grant funding for Legal Aid's Take Charge of Your Life Campaign – Empowering Seniors to Prepare for Incapacity and End of Life (the “Campaign”). The purpose of the Campaign is to improve the general health and well-being of Napa County seniors by promoting seniors’ thoughtful and informed completion of advance health care directives (“directives”) by (1) creating and distributing a consumer guide to directives, (2) offering free presentations and legal clinics throughout Napa County on end-of-life decision-making and (3) assisting seniors in the completion and execution of directives.
To achieve these goals, the Campaign will recruit attorneys from Napa County’s private Bar to work in conjunction with Legal Aid attorneys to provide pro bono (free) legal services, individually and in clinical settings, to interested seniors. This approach will ensure that an increasing number of Napa County seniors will receive essential legal advice, education and assistance on end-of-life care options, the importance of discussing preferences with loved ones, and the practical aspects of putting one’s final health care wishes into a documented legal format.
Funding for the Initiative comes from the County's Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) funds, the purpose of which is to promote and support the provision of "health services" in the County.
Legal Aid of Napa Valley Receives $64,000 Cy Pres Award
Thanks to the recommendation of Niall McCarthy of the law firm of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy, Legal Aid of Napa Valley recently received a $64,000 cy pres award from the settlement of the Northern Trust Bank of California class action litigation. These funds will assist Legal Aid in providing critical legal services to Napa County's most vulnerable populations—seniors, immigrants and low-income individuals.
In the $21 million settlement of the class action law suit, Northern Trust Bank of California has agreed to pay the beneficiaries of trust accounts about $15,000 each on average. The lawsuit alleged that Northern Trust charged excessive management fees to individuals, charities and others with trust accounts. The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, said that Northern Trust held and managed investments on behalf of beneficiaries, collecting fees based on a percentage of the assets. The trusts should have been charged annual fees of less than 1%, but were illegally ratcheted up to about 1.4% a year, the suit said. Co-lead counsel Niall P. McCarthy of CP&M said the overcharges began in 1981 and continued until 2003. The settlement was approved in Los Angeles Superior Court.
What is a cy pres award?
Class Action attorneys negotiating settlement or litigating the remedy in their actions must often address the probability that not all class members will be located, or that defendant's conduct has made full restitution to all injured victims impossible or infeasible. Under such circumstances, the courts may approve a charitable donation out of unclaimed residue of class action funds, or a direct grant in lieu of damages to any entity that will vindicate class member rights in the future. This approach avoids a windfall to the defendant and serves the deterrent goals of civil rights laws.
Legal Aid Board Member, Teresa Cunningham, Receives 2008 Women in Business Award for Professionals
Teresa A. Cunningham, Gaw Van Male attorney and Legal Aid Board member, has received the 2008 Women in Business Award for Professionals.
She is one of nine women from Napa, Sonoma and Marin Counties who have distinguished themselves as leaders, innovators and visionaries in their fields. This is the eighth annual award, presented on June 26 by the North Bay Business Journal.
Congratulations Teresa!
Marlo Cohen Attends Conference Sponsored by the State Bar of California
Marlo Cohen, Legal Aid's Development Director and Pro Bono Coordinator, attended the State Bar of California's Pathways to Justice Conference, from June 5-7, 2008. Her attendance was made possible thanks in large part to a generous grant from the Peter A. and Vernice H. Gasser Foundation and a competitive scholarship she received from the California State Bar.
The conference, held in Los Angeles, offered numerous training sessions covering a multitude of topics for staff, board members and volunteers from legal services agencies, pro bono programs, lawyer referral services, self-help legal centers, court-based pro per programs, and other partners in the delivery of legal assistance to low- and moderate-income Californians. Marlo focused much of her time in workshops and round-table discussions addressing the delivery of pro bono legal services in rural communities.
