Newsletter #1 December 2018

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

Season’s Greetings on behalf of everyone involved with Middle Justice! We are excited to present our first newsletter and share with you the progress we have made in our first year of operation. Middle Georgia Access to Justice Council, Inc., was formed on October 16, 2017 as a domestic non-profit corporation. On May 2, 2018, we were approved by the IRS as a tax exempt 501(c)(3) entity. On June 1, 2018, we opened our office at 241 3rd Street, Suite 200, in Macon. Our mission is to complement and support existing legal service programs by providing assistance to people of modest means to get the legal services they need on a pro bono or reduced fee basis. We do this through the operation of a lawyer incubator program and a referral service.

Read more below about the participants in our incubator program, Rob Divis who joined us in June and Trineice Hill who joined us in November. We are excited to have them as pioneers in this new way in middle Georgia to get a solo law practice started in a supportive setting. Our participants are provided office space, furniture, equipment, technology, and mentoring for a fee over an 18-month period. As a part of their participation in the program, they agree to provide 30 hours per month of pro bono or reduced fee legal services.

Our referral service started in September. We are excited we have 27 lawyers who have already signed up to be in our Justice Brigade. Their names are listed below. We will be seeking more volunteers as we deal with the anticipated growth in the number of people seeking our services.

Please check out our website at www.mgajustice.org for more information. We solicit your financial support for this crucial mission. Gifts can be made securely and easily through the Donations Tab on our website or by mailing a check to PO Box 1732, Macon, GA 31202. Please consider signing up through the website to make monthly donations. We also need more volunteer lawyers. It is easy to sign up through the Volunteer Tab on our website and we will then schedule a convenient time for an orientation.

What a blessed year it has been! We are grateful for all the donations, volunteers, and expressions of support. We look forward to a great 2019 and will do everything we can to make the community proud of the efforts of local lawyers to close the justice gap.

Bill Adams, President

Meet our Officers, Board Members, Staff and Volunteers

Officers

Bill Adams Timothy W. Floyd Stuart Walker William Gifford President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Adams Law Firm Mercer Law School Martin Snow, LLP Retired Attorney

Board Members

Brian Adams Cathy Cox Tomieka Daniel Ashley Deadwyler- Adams Law Firm Mercer Law School Georgia Legal Heuman Services Program Deadwyler - Heuman Law Firm

Daisy H. Floyd C. Brian Jarrard Paul M. Knott Julia Magda Mercer Law Jarrard Law Group Paul M. Knott, Magda Law, LLC School P.C.

Veronica John Reeves Albert Reichert Rachael Schell McClendon Smith, Hawkins, Anderson, Walker Georgia Legal Attorney at Law Hollingsworth & & Reichert, LLP Services Program Reeves, LLP

Staff & Volunteers

Debbie L. Aickelin Shandi Kennedy C. Graham Foster Office Manager Mercer Law Student Mercer Law Student

Meet Rob Divis Robert Divis grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, graduating from Cleveland State University with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1999. While attending Cleveland State, Robert was an ROTC cadet, and, upon graduation, became the first cadet from Cleveland State to earn an active duty commission into the Army in over ten years. Robert then served in the 82nd Airborne Division’s storied 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was injured in performance of his duties and spent nearly a decade in recovery. In 2014, he started law school at . While there, his article on veteran disability compensation reform entitled Paving the Road Less Travelled was selected for publication in the law review of the Department of Veterans Affairs Board of Veterans Appeals. Robert is the editor of Developments in Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, an annual digest published by the American Bar Association that details the most important developments in federal agency law each year. Mr. Divis’ practice in Macon focuses on consumer law, probate, and veterans’ law. Robert and his wife, Kellie, live in Northwest Macon and have three children, ages 9, 7, and 6. Learn more about Rob at www.divislaw.com

Meet Trineice Hill

Trineice was born and raised in Macon, Georgia and graduated from Westside High School in 2007. She attended Albany State University where she majored in English and minored in Spanish. She then went on to attend Mercer University School of Law and graduated in 2014. In 2014, there was a surge of unaccompanied minor children coming across the United States border. There were more than 60,000 kids that crossed the border in that fiscal year. In response, Eric Holder and Barack Obama created the Justice AmeriCorps Fellowship Program, funded through AmeriCorps and Equal Justice Works to fund attorneys that would represent those minors in immigration court. Trineice wanted to be part of the solution so in 2014 she joined the Justice AmeriCorps Program through Catholic Charities . For the last four years, Trineice has represented minors and adults in removal proceedings and also represented them at hearings before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. In Trineice's words, the best part of working with immigration cases is creating stable families. Trineice hopes to expand into family law so that she can help stabilize more families. Outside the law, she loves reading romance novels and spending time with her 11 nieces and nephews.

We are fortunate to have had great support as we started our new mission, opened our office, and began operating our incubator program and referral service. We are grateful to all of our supporters who we recognize below, starting with those most central to getting the office open and operational:

Georgia Legal Services Program – Ira Foster, Tomieka Daniel & the entire staff Office Space Community Foundation of Central Georgia – Kathryn Dennis & Julia Wood Fiscal Sponsor Bibb Home Improvement – Ken Smith & all the sub contractors Office Renovation Alex’s PC Solution – Alex Permenter, Daryl Ebanks & the entire staff Computers, Phones & Cabling Lamb & Braswell, LLC – Jimmy Braswell & Jerda Taylor CPA Services The Park Group – Scott & Dana Park Website & Marketing MBG Office Systems – Chris Wrabel Copier

The furniture and artwork for our new offices were donated by the following: Adams Law Firm BB&T Childers & McCain, LLC Law Office of Ashley Deadwyler-Heuman William & Bonnie Gifford Hall, Bloch, Garland, & Meyer, LLP Stifel Stone & Baxter, LLP Westmoreland, Patterson, Moseley, & Hinson, LLP Larry Williams

Special thanks go out to our friends at Lawyers for Equal Justice (L4EJ), the first lawyer incubator program in Georgia - Sarah Babcock and Bucky Askew - for their encouragement and sharing of resources, and to Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation - Marty Ellin and Erica Taylor - for their words of wisdom and guidance.

DONATIONS & GRANTS 2017-2018 (through 12/7/18)

Up to $249 $500-999 Adams, Jordan & Herrington Bert Bivins Tim Adams Ron Daniels Ronald & Debbie Aickelin John & Barbara Hurst Honorable Jason Ashford Steven Jarrard Mary Kay Bryan Michael Lemon Ivy Cadle Jeffrey Powers Jocelyn Daniel John D. Reeves Tomieka Daniel Jenny Stansfield Karen Geiger Nancy Terrill Wendy Glasbrenner Joel Grist $1000+ Wendy Heiman Adams Law Firm Frank Horne Bill & Cheryl Adams Greg & Jane Jordan Phil Bond Jaime Kaplan Community Foundation of Central Georgia Veronica McClendon Albert & Bebe Reichert Fund Rebekah Myers Cathy Cox Loretta & Helen Pinkston-Pope Dozier Law Firm Erik Pirozzi Timothy & Daisy Floyd Warren Plowden Georgia Bar Foundation Albert Reichert C. Brian Jarrard Sam Rogers Norman & Frances Jarrard Mark Sanchez Jones Cork Law Firm Rachael Schell Judicial Council of Georgia Amanda Smith Paul M. Knott, PC Tachunta Thomas Julia Magda Martin Foundation, Inc. $250-499 Peyton Anderson Foundation Childers & McCain Honorable Marc Treadwell Deadwyler-Heuman Law Firm State Bar of Georgia Edwards & Bullard Stuart Walker Jeanna Fennell Ed & Marcy Whitten William D. Gifford Connie Williford Honorable Jeffrey B. Hanson

Mary Katz Macon Bar Association Beverlyn Ming Honorable Lamar W. Sizemore THE JUSTICE BRIGADE

These attorneys have signed up to accept referrals of cases to be handled on a pro bono or reduced fee basis. They are crucial to our mission, and we are most grateful for their willingness to serve our community in this way.

V. Jim Adams Katherine Kalish David Addleton Paula Kapiloff Robert Berlin Michael Lemon Ashley Brodie Lori Obenauf Robert Divis David Pope John Fleming Amanda Richardson Frank T. Gaddy Matthew Sanders Karen Gibson Honorable William J. Self Emmett Goodman Jenny Stansfield Kevin B. Hicks Peter Storey Trineice Hill Graham Thorpe Rebekah Hogg Anna Usry Michael Horner Connie Williford Jordan Josey Jr

Middle Georgia Access to Justice, Inc. 241 Third Street, Suite 200 Macon, GA 31201 P.O. Box 1732, Macon, GA 31202 Phone (478)238-0224 * Fax (478)207-5082 Find us on Facebook at:: www.facebook.com/mgajustice Visit our website at: www.mgajustice.org

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