Kenneth Babcock
Executive Director
People are often surprised to hear the Public Law Center provides $8 dollars’ worth of legal services to our low-income Orange County neighbors for every $1 dollar of donations we receive. Supporters like you love the multiplying effect of turning each monetary donation into life-changing civil legal aid for domestic violence survivors, veterans, seniors, children and others in our community. I know a few wonder (sometimes out loud to me) what we can realistically do when you take $1 dollar and try to stretch it out to $8 dollars of assistance.
So let me take this opportunity to make the math come alive. For starters, PLC invests in smart, well-trained, talented, and committed lawyers. In addition, we don’t just stop at great attorneys; we also hire and train an amazing legal support and operations team who help make the top-notch legal minds of our staff and volunteer attorneys accessible to Orange County residents. The PLC staff is the reason we can make the types of impact you’ll read about in the articles below.
As Orange County’s pro bono law firm, next in the equation are our unparalleled volunteer attorneys. From nationally recognized legal experts to energetic first-year associates, the pro bono workforce PLC helps coordinate is second to none. And, we try to build these relationships early by providing high-quality legal training to law student volunteers. We can turn $1 into $8, because of our partnerships with bar associations, law firms, corporate legal departments, law schools, and other non-profits.
Finally, PLC benefits greatly from our tremendous Board of Directors. As part of our annual leadership transition, we thank our Board members who are rolling off of officer or Executive Committee at large positions – Bob Wolfe, Bob Knudsen, Todd Gordinier and Jim Meeker – for their outstanding contributions to PLC. And we welcome our new leadership – Darren Aitken (Vice President), Aaron Malo (Secretary/Treasurer), Mark Erickson (Executive Committee at large), Mike Ermer (Executive Committee at large) and Bob Knudsen (transitioning from Treasurer to Executive Committee at large). They join President Julie McCoy and Executive Committee at large members Roman Darmer and Michele Johnson and Immediate Past President Mike Williams to make an amazingly top notch leadership team for PLC in 2015.
So that’s how you make $1 equal $8. Now, I’m going to show you how to make $1 equal $16!
As you know, we recently launched PLC’s Annual Fund Campaign. Thanks to supporters like you, we already raised 15 percent our total goal of $125,000. In order to meet our full Campaign Goal, we need to raise an additional $25,000 before December 31, 2014. To help us stay on track, a generous anonymous donor has issued a matching donation challenge. Any new donations PLC receives before Wednesday, December 24th will be matched dollar for dollar!* That means, if you donate between now and 11:59pm PT on December 24th, each $1 dollar you give will equal $16 dollars worth of free legal services to our most vulnerable Orange County neighbors.
There’s no better time to support PLC and transform our community. Please click here to make your donation today. If you have any questions or would like to explore other ways to give, please give me a call at (714) 541-1010, extension 272 or email me at kbabcock@publiclawcenter.org.
Thank you for your commitment to access to justice!
* Gifts from first-time donors to the Annual Fund Campaign or increased gifts from past donors will be matched dollar for dollar up to $5,000.