2021 Pro Bono Award Winners Recognized

The 2021 Pro Bono Award winners were recognized during the virtual NCBA Annual Meeting on Thursday, June 17. The recipients are:

• Deborah Greenblatt Outstanding Legal Services Attorney Award: Dr. Johnnie C. Larrie – Legal Aid of North Carolina (Raleigh)
• Law Firm Pro Bono Award: Robinson Bradshaw (Charlotte)
• Law School Pro Bono Award: Elon University School of Law – People Not Property Project (Greensboro)
• Outstanding Collaborative Pro Bono Award: Charles W. Williamson Bar Foundation (Henderson)
• William Thorp Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Service Award: Sean Lew – Sean Lew, PLLC Attorney at Law (Winston-Salem)
• Young Lawyers Division Pro Bono Service Award: John Noor – Roberts & Stevens (Asheville)

Deborah Greenblatt Outstanding Legal Services Attorney Award
The Deborah Greenblatt Outstanding Legal Services Attorney Award is presented to a lawyer who is employed full time by a legal services program in North Carolina and who has made an exemplary contribution to the provision of legal assistance to help meet the needs of the poverty population in North Carolina. The award is named in memory of Deborah Greenblatt, longtime executive director of Carolina Legal Assistance.

Johnnie Larrie is an experienced consumer defense attorney with over 25 years of legal experience, who also holds a PhD. in Public Administration. In 1998, Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) was fortunate to hire her as a consumer attorney to tackle the consumer issues that arose after Hurricane Floyd in 1998. Currently, Johnnie serves as the Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) Consumer Practice Group Manager (PGM) and its Senior Managing Attorney for the Economic Justice Initiative (EJI), as well as manages LANC’s statewide consumer work.

Johnnie has been instrumental in the development of a statewide legal strategy to maximize representation of low-income homeowners facing foreclosure. Incorporating Johnnie’s impassioned approach to consumer representation, LANC attorneys have pursued untested legal theories and broke new ground in the application of NC foreclosure law. Through her skillful leadership, training, and supervision of LANC attorneys, she has worked tirelessly to save literally thousands of homes and millions of dollars in equity for lower income North Carolinians. During the pandemic, Johnnie’s advocacy work has enabled many LANC clients to utilize federal protections to help them maintain homeownership and economic stability. Throughout her LANC career, Johnnie has been and continues to be a fierce litigator and a relentless trailblazer representing the interests of vulnerable low-income consumers in North Carolina.

Law Firm Pro Bono Award
The Law Firm Pro Bono Award recognizes a law firm for its commitment to pro bono service through the contribution of pro bono hours, the percentage of billable hours devoted to pro bono work, the number and percentage of firm attorneys providing pro bono legal service, the firm’s creative approach to pro bono engagement, the consistency and sincerity of its pro bono program, and the presence of a law firm culture that is grounded in the observance of Rule 6.1 (Voluntary Pro Bono Publico Service) of the N.C. Rules of Professional Conduct.

This year Robinson Bradshaw attorneys, along with the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy (CCLA) and the North Carolina Justice Center, contributed 510 hours of service to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Lake Arbor Apartments tenants that resulted in significant settlement funds. Tenants in this affordable housing complex had been forced to pay rent for sub-standard housing – apartments with exposed wiring, rat and insect infestations, and broken furnaces. Following mass inspections in 2018, the City of Charlotte required hundreds of repairs to be made and issued fines, but the apartment complex’s owners ignored these orders and fines while continuing to collect rent from residents. In response to the class action’s filing, Lake Arbor moved to immediately evict tenants by December 31, 2019, and sold the complex to a private equity firm. The firm’s attorneys obtained an attachment order against the apartment complex, which effectively forced a mediation and settlement discussions that resulted in an award of $547,500 for 105 class members – nearly two times the rent they paid for apartments with dangerous defects.

Under the leadership of firm attorney Jane Ratteree, this year the firm also provided 250 hours of pro bono service to represent CCLA in the purchase of its new building. The contract for purchase predated replacement of two connected buildings as separate properties, requiring multiple revisions and extensions of the contract. The purchase further required negotiation and execution of a reciprocal easement agreement with numerous provisions, as well as an access easement. Successful navigation and completion of this complex transaction ensures CCLA staff’s use of a modern office space for its expanding programs, and that demonstrates respect and esteem for CCLA’s clients.

Additionally, Robinson Bradshaw attorney Adam Doerr led a successful litigation effort on behalf of low-income families against the North Carolina Department of Revenue to ensure eligible families received an additional $335 in COVID-19 relief. Following Governor Cooper’s announcement of the Extra Credit Grant for North Carolina parents to pay for remote learning or childcare expenses, Attorney Doerr noted that low-income families had to apply online through the Department of Revenue, whereas middle- and high-income families who filed a 2019 state income tax return automatically received the payment. Low-income families entitled to this relief had just 29 days to learn about the program and apply, resulting in just 15,000 applications. Attorney Doerr and a team of firm attorneys successfully pursued a claim against the Department of Revenue for injunctive relief. Prior to the injunction hearing, Attorney Doerr negotiated a settlement that extended the application deadline by nearly two months and provided $650,000 for a third party to promote the program and collect information about new applicants. Providing 581 pro bono service hours to this project, the firm’s work resulted in 24,946 low-income North Carolinians receiving the grant, totaling $8 million distributed to those in financial need.

Law School Pro Bono Award
The Law Student Group Pro Bono Service Award is presented to an outstanding law student group whose pro bono project has advanced access to justice in North Carolina. Consideration is given to law school groups or projects engaging two or more North Carolina law school students who are not receiving law school academic credit for their work and who have provided assistance to low-income people in North Carolina.

Elon University School of Law’s pro bono People Not Property (“PNP”) Project started in 2019 as part of a larger, state-wide project to transcribe so-called “slave deeds” – handwritten bills of sale evidencing the transfer of enslaved people during the pre-Civil War era – into electronic, searchable form. The purpose of the organization is to make important legal documents providing information about the lives of enslaved people more readily available to scholars, historians, genealogists, and the general public.

Elon Law’s PNP Project, working with the Guilford County Register of Deeds Office, has transcribed and catalogued all 263 “slave deeds” recorded in Guilford County, North Carolina. “Slave deeds” are the legal documents that memorialize the transfer of enslaved people. Given that these documents were created in the 18th and 19th centuries, they are handwritten and extremely difficult to decipher, particularly in an online format. The process of obtaining, transcribing, proofing, and cataloging information from the slave deeds takes several hours for each document. Consequently, Elon Law students have spent hundreds of hours working to make these documents available in searchable electronic form.

The 263 transcribed slave deeds from Guilford County have been provided to the Guilford County Register of Deeds office and will be made publicly available. As a result of the PNP Project’s work, Guilford County is the first county in North Carolina to have digital, searchable slave deeds. This is especially important for two reasons. First, it will allow academics and genealogists to learn more about the history of the pre-Civil War era. Second, these documents often represent the only written records pertaining to individuals who suffered in slavery. Making these documents more accessible helps to reclaim the stories of people who were literally treated as property, recognizes the full humanity of these individuals, and acknowledges the law’s role in perpetuating the shameful institution of slavery.

Slavery often separated enslaved persons from their families. The work of the Elon PNP Project and the Guilford County Register of Deeds Office will allow individuals whose ancestors experienced slavery to research their family members in a way that was previously inaccessible.

Outstanding Collaborative Pro Bono Award
The Outstanding Collaborative Pro Bono Service Award is presented to a law firm, local, district, or statewide bar organization whose members have engaged in significant and notable legal services or have contributed outstanding support and assistance to the maintenance of pro bono legal services for low-income individuals.

The Charles W. Williamson Bar Association is named after Charles W. Williamson who was the first African American attorney to practice in the 11th prosecutorial district when he opened an office in Vance County in 1933. Despite its small size of thirty attorneys, the Charles W. Williamson Bar Association made a huge impact on its district in 2020 by creating a free Driver’s License Restoration Project. In this rural district comprised of Vance, Person, Warren, Granville and Franklin Counties, residents without a valid driver’s license are unable to secure jobs and affordable housing due to the absence of a sizeable public transportation system. Determined to help the members of their community to restore their opportunities, this Bar Association – led by Charles W. Williamson Bar Association President Ajulo Othow – collaborated with the District Attorney’s Office, the Vance County Clerk of Superior Court, the North Carolina Justice Center, Legal Aid of North Carolina, and local law enforcement agencies, to lead the effort for mass debt relief for over 150 low-income clients.

The first Driver’s License Restoration clinic was limited to 100 clients and, due to its success and such a high response, a second clinic was added. Six months of planning, training of volunteer attorneys, intake clinics, consultations, and court sessions led to over 150 client appointments, 450 pending charges being dismissed, and 450 motions to remit unpaid costs and fines which totaled more than $130,000. The impact of these services reaches far beyond the individuals served, providing needed relief for families and the whole community.

William Thorp Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Service Award
The William Thorp Pro Bono Service Award is presented to an NCBA member attorney who practices in North Carolina and has provided substantial legal services, in excess of the aspirational goals of Rule 6.1, with no expectation of receiving a fee, to a client or client group that could not otherwise afford legal counsel.

Since 2006, Sean Lew has dedicated more than 732 hours of pro bono legal services to the Hmong of northwest North Carolina, a Southeast Asian ethnic community. His 14+ years of involvement have increased civil access to justice to an overlooked and underserved ethnic group in the state consisting of many who are unable to speak English, many who are without financial means to hire an attorney, and many who have an inherent mistrust and misunderstanding of the American legal system.

For many years, Sean has provided free legal assistance in the areas of immigration and naturalization law the first Friday afternoon of each month to those without financial means to hire an attorney. In addition, he has recruited attorneys and law students to provide the Hmong community with free annual “Ask a Lawyer” workshops covering consumer, family, and immigration law. During the pandemic, Sean provided free remote advice for N-400 Naturalization applications and developed a naturalization PowerPoint to share remotely with the Hmong community. Sean has served as a legal mentor to Hmong students and is proud to share that there are now Hmong lawyers serving the northwest North Carolina community.

A member of the North Carolina Pro Bono Honor Society, Sean received the inaugural NCBA Citizen Lawyer Award in 2007 and served as a past co-chair of the NCBA’s YLD Pro Bono & Poverty Issues Committee.

Young Lawyers Division Pro Bono Service Award
The Younger Lawyer Pro Bono Service Award is presented by the NCBA Young Lawyers Division to a YLD member who has made extraordinary contributions by providing exemplary legal services without a fee and increased access to justice on behalf of persons of limited means and/or charitable groups or organizations.

John Noor has provided pro bono services to low-income people in western North Carolina since 2013. In the eight years since, he has handled 60 pro bono cases through Pisgah Legal Services’ Mountain Area Volunteer Lawyer Program (MAVLP), including housing, domestic violence, consumer protection and debt, and immigration matters. In addition to handling cases himself, John also recruits, trains and mentors new volunteer attorneys for the MAVLP. He has served as chair of Pisgah Legal Services’ Young Professionals Board, and since 2018 on the Board of Directors. In these roles, he has actively sought community support for civil legal aid. In addition, John has chaired the Buncombe County Bar Association’s Pro Bono Committee for two years.

In 2019, John donated 85 hours of legal services to three non-profit organizations serving some of Asheville’s most vulnerable residents, including individuals experiencing homelessness, substance abuse, and marginalization. John’s work enabled two of these organizations to keep open a syringe exchange for which the City of Asheville had issued Notices of Violation. As a result of his work, the City withdrew the citation and agreed to keep the exchange open permanently. Last year the exchange provided more than 200,000 syringes, thousands of safe injection supply kits, and 1600 naloxone overdose-reversal kits that prevented 265 overdose deaths.

John’s commitment to pro bono leadership and service in western North Carolina inspires others to serve, as well. In 2020, John coordinated the Buncombe County Bar Association, Pisgah Legal Services and the NC Bar Foundation to offer the state’s first COVID-19 Legal Hotline to help those affected by the pandemic. The Western NC COVID-19 Legal Hotline engaged over 100 attorney volunteers to serve 551 callers with free legal information and resources. As the Asheville site chair for the 2021 NCBF 4ALL Statewide Service Day, John recruited others to serve alongside him to answer callers’ questions through the 4ALL pro bono program. At every turn, John demonstrates a sincere commitment to pro bono service.