IN THIS ISSUE:

• Kicking off the first statewide fundraising campaign for legal aid in Arkansas
• Mark your calendar for the Promise of Justice Conference 2009
• Legal Aid of Arkansas gives away free school supplies in Brinkley
• Remembering our friend, legal aid attorney Ms. Zenola Hilliard
• Meet our newest Commissioner, Prof. D'lorah Hughes

Kicking off our first statewide fundraising campaign for legal aid

To provide access to civil justice for all Arkansans, we need at least one legal aid attorney for every 5,000 low-income residents. But the legal aid providers in Arkansas are not even close to this minimum standard of access. We have 14,000 low-income Arkansans for each legal aid attorney.

To narrow the gap between legal needs and legal aid, the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission has teamed up with Arkansas’s legal aid organizations to conduct the first-ever Promise of Justice Campaign. We need to raise $500,000 for the two legal aid providers in our state: the Center for Arkansas Legal Services and Legal Aid of Arkansas.

On Thursday, Oct. 1, the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission will kick off this fundraising effort. Please join us as we celebrate this milestone. We have scheduled the kick-off in two locations for your convenience:

To donate or to learn more about the Promise of Justice Campaign, please visit our website at www.ArkansasJustice.org/donate

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Mark your calendar for the Promise of Justice Conference 2009

For the first time in our state’s history, legal and political leaders will come together to discuss access to civil justice in Arkansas. On behalf of the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission, we invite you to

The Promise of Justice Conference
Friday, November 13, 2009
8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Peabody Hotel and Convention Center
Three Statehouse Plaza
Little Rock, AR 72201

The Promise of Justice Conference will feature the following speakers:

Lunch will be provided, as will three hours of CLE credit (including one hour of Ethics). If you are interested in obtaining CLE credit, there is a $100 registration fee. Otherwise, the conference is free.

For more information and to find an agenda, please visit www.ArkansasJustice.org/conference. To register online, please go to www.ArkansasJustice.org/register.

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Legal Aid of Arkansas gives away free school supplies in Brinkley

Legal Aid of Arkansas (LAA) gave away $1,000 worth of school supplies to children and parents in Brinkley on Tuesday, July 28. LAA estimates that it served 212 people.

Each year before school starts, LAA hosts a Back to School Supplies Giveaway. During these events, LAA gives away free school supplies to low-income children in the Delta. This was LAA’s third year to host the event, and it took place at the First Missionary Baptist Church.

Minutes after opening the doors, parents and children crowded into the sanctuary of the church. Every few minutes, a volunteer called to the seated families, pew by pew. Those seated would stand and form a line. Waiting for them in a back room were free school supplies, snacks, and legal information. The backpacks were gone in minutes, and the rest was gone within an hour.

LAA is a non-profit corporation with a vision to improve the lives of low-income Arkansans by championing equal access to justice regardless of economic or social circumstances. LAA provides free legal help with civil legal matters to those who qualify.

Click here to view photos from the Brinkley giveaway.

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Remembering our friend, legal aid attorney Ms. Zenola Hilliard

Friend and colleague Ms. Zenola M. Hilliard of Pine Bluff has passed away. Ms. Hilliard was a legal aid attorney in the Pine Bluff office of the Center for Arkansas Legal Services.

Ms. Hilliard graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1976 and earned her juris doctorate degree from Creighton University in 1979. She began her legal career at Omaha Legal Aid Society, and then moved to Pine Bluff. She was a former “Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship Attorney” with Central Arkansas Legal Services 1979-1981. For the next twenty years 1982-2002, she headed her own law firm in Pine Bluff – the Hilliard Law Office. In 2002, she returned as a staff attorney to the Pine Bluff office of the Center for Arkansas Legal Services until 2009.

Ms. Hilliard served as attorney for the City of Reed, Arkansas 1988-1997 and the Westside Sewer Improvement District No. 35 1989-1998. She was Municipal Judge of Gould, Arkansas 1998-2001. She was a member of VOCALS and a pro bono volunteer attorney during her years in private practice. She was a member of the Jefferson County Bar Association and Arkansas Bar Association. She is survived by her husband, her mother, a daughter and many relatives.

She touched the lives of so many in her community and state. Zenola’s life stood as a testament to the cause of justice and the right of every citizen, regardless of their financial means, to have access to the justice system.

Click here to view photos from Ms. Zenola Hilliard's Memorial Service hosted by the Jefferson County Bar Association

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Meet our newest Commissioner, Prof. D'lorah Hughes

Professor D'lorah Hughes was appointed to the Commission in July 2009 by Dean Cyndi Nance of the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Prof. Hughes teaches and directs the Criminal Clinics at the University of Arkansas School of Law. In addition to teaching both the Criminal Defense and Criminal Prosecution clinics, she is developing courses in AIDS/HIV Policy and Law.  Her teaching experience includes courses in Health Law, Pre-Trial Litigation Skills, and, most recently, Advanced Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation, which she taught to both American and Chinese law students at Nanjing University in Nanjing, China.

Prior to joining the University of Arkansas, Professor Hughes served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve School of Law, where she taught in the Health Law Clinic, and she served as an Assistant Professor and First-Year Legal Analysis Program Coordinator at Whittier Law School.

After graduating from Duke Law School, Professor Hughes served as a judicial clerk under the Honorable Janis Graham Jack of the U.S. District Court in Texas' Southern District, a staff attorney in the AIDS Legal Services Program of the Law Foundation of SiliconValley, and as a Deputy Public Defender for the Orange County Public Defender's Office in Santa Ana, California.

She is a Board Member for the AALS Section on Balancing Legal Education, a member of the Clinical Legal Education Association, Society of American Law Teachers, and the California Public Defender's Association, among others. She recently delivered a presentation, "Millenial Law Students and Clinical Legal Education" during the Humanizing Legal Education Symposium at Washburn Law School.

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