New York State Pro Bono Opportunities Guide
Accolades: Honoring NY Lawyers Pro Bono Work
New York Lawyer
October 18, 2007
By Thomas Adcock
New York Law Journal
As a boy, Andrew Friedman promised his immigrant grandparents that he would somehow see to it that New York City lived up to the poetic pledge engraved on the Statue of Liberty - "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore./Send these, the homeless, tempest-tos't to me/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Mr. Friedman became a lawyer and kept his promise.
Last week, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced the gift of $105,000 toward what it termed Mr. Friedman's "quiet crusade" of the past decade on behalf immigrants and the poor - as well as $20,000 for his personal use.
In March 1997, while still a student at New York University School of Law, Mr. Friedman and fellow student Oona Chatterjee founded Make the Road by Walking, a nonprofit advocacy organization providing Brooklyn immigrants with help in overcoming language barriers and administrative mazes that often prevent equal access to health and social services. They have served as co-executive directors ever since.
The organization takes its name from a line by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939), "Searcher, there is no road. We make the road by walking."
Since its beginnings in the basement of St. Barbara's Church in Bushwick, Make the Road has moved from an all-volunteer group to an organization with a staff of 25 full-time and 20 part-time employes. Its budget has grown from an initial $72,000 to $2.5 million this year.
On Monday, the organization completed its merger with the Latin American Integration Center to become known as Make the Road New York, serving Queens and Staten Island as well as Brooklyn. The combined annual budget is about $4 million. With merger, a third co-executive director was named - Ana Maria Archila, who previously headed the center.
Mr. Friedman, 37, said he would apply the $105,000 of foundation money to expand existing Make the Road initiatives that monitor hospital and pharmacies to ensure compliance with health-related civil rights law, as well as equal access to health insurance.
As for personal use, Mr. Friedman plans to devote most of the $20,000 to his 2-year-old son's college fund. The rest, "sadly, will go to liquidating debt," he said.
According to his colleagues, the soft-spoken Mr. Friedman is not comfortable accepting congratulations. On occasions when he must, they said, he tends to use expressions popular during his grandparents' younger days.
Mr. Friedman's first reaction to news of the Robert Wood Johnson gift was a hearty "Hubba-hubba!"
For demonstrating "professional excellence and honor to country," Loeb & Loeb partner Martin Pollner is set to receive the Townsend Harris Medal from the The City College of New York Alumni Association during the group's 127th annual dinner Oct. 18 at the New York Marriott Marquis.
Mr. Pollner, class president when he graduated from CCNY in 1957, served in several federal positions, including deputy U.S. attorney general under Robert F. Kennedy.
The Townsend Harris Medal was established in 1933, and named for the founder of CCNY. Past recipients have included Colin L. Powell, former U.S. secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Jonas E. Salk (1914-1995), the physician and medical researcher who developed the world's first successful polio vaccine.
The second annual Leadership Awards Gala of the South Asian Bar Association honored four legal and business professionals on Sept. 22 during a banquet at Cipriani 23 in Manhattan.
Recognized were Srinandan R. Kasi, vice-president and general counsel of The Associated Press; Aney K. Chandy, corporation counsel for the City of Newark, N.J.; Smita Narula, professor of clinical law at the Center for Human Rights & Global Justice at New York University School of Law; and Anshu Jain, managing director and head of global markets for Deutsche Bank.
The keynote speaker at the event was Preet Bharara, chief counsel to Senator Charles E. Schumer on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Mr. Bharara is also principal advisor to Mr. Schumer on the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts.
Law firm sponsors for the awards program included Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Sidley Austin; Winston & Strawn; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; Dewey & LeBoeuf; DLA Piper; Kaye Scholer; Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler; and Sullivan & Cromwell. Corporate sponsors included Navigant Consulting and Valero Energy.
Twenty-six new members of the Philadelphia-based American Law Institute were elected in early September, bringing the total active and ex-officio membership in the elite organization to 4,066.
Among the 26 were two New York City practitioners and a jurist: Thomas A. Dubbs of Labaton Sucharow & Rudoff; Stephen T. Whelan of Thacher Proffitt & Wood; and Judge Richard C. Wesley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
"Members are elected through a highly selective process that recognizes people for their significant professional achievements," said Michael Traynor, president of the institute. "Election is considered one of the highest honors in the legal profession."
Among the early leaders of the institute, founded in 1923, were former President William Howard Taft, later chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; future Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes; former Secretary of State Elihu Root; Court of Appeals Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo; and Learned Hand, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
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