Atlanta Bar Foundation President ' s Message
JOEL NEUMAN joelmneuman @ gmail . com
M any of you probably don ’ t know that the Atlanta Bar Association has a philanthropic arm called the Atlanta Bar Foundation . Even fewer of you know about the Foundation ’ s Grants program , which is in partnership with the Atlanta Bar Association Lawyer Referral and Information Service ( LRIS ), and the initiatives sponsored by the Foundation including the Summer Law Internship Program , the Minority and Diversity Clerkship Program and the Police Scholarship Program . And virtually no one , including me , has a comprehensive understanding of the Foundation ’ s history . So , when Harry Winograd called to ask me if I would write an article for this month ’ s Atlanta Lawyer , I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to do a little digging and try to uncover the roots of all the great work done by the Foundation . I assumed that doing so would be pretty easy to accomplish . I was wrong .
It turns out there a number of reasons why the history of the Foundation is shrouded in some mystery . For one , time has passed as the Foundation is about to celebrate it ’ s 40th Anniversary ( and never fear , we will not let this anniversary pass without trying to create financial security for our signature programs over the next decade of our existence ). Second , some who were instrumental in establishing the Foundation or its various programs are no longer with us . Finally , lawyers who were involved in the early years of the Foundation are humble people and did not want to take credit for some of the great work they undoubtedly did to establish the Foundation in its early years . Nevertheless , calling upon my longlost investigative skills as a litigator ( a role I last had in 2003 ), and with a hat tip to Diane O ’ Steen , Bill Ragland and Wade Malone , I ’ ve managed to discover a bit about the Foundation ’ s history .
Although the Foundation was formed in 1985 , the story of the Foundation actually begins a few years earlier when Atlanta was in the grip of a missing and murdered children crisis . The Atlanta Police Department was under intense pressure to solve the case and was receiving criticism from all sides . As a show of support to the APD , Charlie Shaffer of King & Spalding , who was then the President of the Atlanta Bar Association , initiated the “ Give Our Police a Hand ” Campaign . The campaign raised about $ 80,000 to provide scholarships for the children of APD officers killed or disabled in the line of duty . Once that initial pot of money was raised , the Bar Association had a problem . Who was going to administer those funds and continue to raise additional funds as scholarships were awarded ? The answer was to create a new arm of the Bar Association which would have 501 ( c )( 3 ) status and , hence , the Atlanta Bar Foundation
10 MAY / JUNE 2024