What: Annual Legal Aid Gala
Featuring: Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Jorge Labarga
When: February 20, 2015
Where: Suntree Country Club
Please mark your calendars! It is with great pleasure that Brevard County Legal Aid welcomes Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Jorge Labarga as our special guest speaker for this year’s Annual Pro Bono Awards and Recognition Gala which will take place on Friday, February 20th at Suntree Country Club in Melbourne.
A Cuban-American whose family fled the Castro regime and arrived in the sugar mill town of Pahokee, Florida in 1963,photo of judge labara Labarga is the first person of Hispanic descent to lead the state judicial branch. As a child, he witnessed the horrors of Castro’s brutal dictatorship first-hand. “I always thought that the best way to defend, protect, and uphold democracy in this nation, so the same thing doesn’t happen here, is to be a lawyer,” Labarga says.
In a legal career spanning more than three decades, Justice Labarga has served as an assistant public defender, prosecutor and defense attorney. He was appointed to the Palm Beach County circuit court in 1996 and to the Florida Supreme Court in 2009. Chief Justice Labarga oversees the entire state court system which includes many management functions centralized in Tallahassee along with regulation of the Florida Bar.
Chief Justice Labarga’s visit to Brevard to celebrate pro bono fits well with the major goal he has set for his administration. On November 24th, Labarga signed an administrative order creating the Florida Commission on Access to Civil Justice at a ceremony in the rotunda of the Florida Supreme Court Building. The Commission will study the unmet civil legal needs of disadvantaged, low-income, and moderate-income Floridians. Its work will include a close look at improving existing legal programs, developing solutions based on new technology, and exploring other ways to meet the needs of Floridians caught in the current civil legal services gap. Leaders from the private sector, the legal community and all three branches of state government will serve on the Commission.
Brevard County Legal Aid’s 28th Annual Pro Bono Awards and Recognition Gala, dinner and awards ceremony is a tribute to Brevard’s attorneys who contribute free legal assistance to help persons that are unable to afford private counsel.
For more information or to purchase tickets please call BCLA at (321) 631-2500 ext. 14