The City of Charleston Honors CPBLS for 50 Years of Service

By: Charleston County Bar Association President, Elizabeth Scott Moïse of Nelson Mullins

Imagine if you were struggling financially and were served with legal papers stating that you and your family were being evicted or your home was going into foreclosure? Or that you were about to lose custody of your child or lose your public benefits such as veteran’s benefits or social security?  What would you do, having no experience with the legal system and no money to pay for legal advice? For the past fifty years, Charleston Pro Bono Legal Services (CPBLS) and its predecessor Neighborhood Legal Assistance Program—along with the many volunteers from the Charleston Bar—have provided these services and so much more to low-income residents in Charleston. On July 11,  the City of Charleston honored CPBLS with a proclamation honoring their fifty years of service, presented by Mayor John J. Tecklenburg, and CPBLS Board Chairman Gerald Kaynard spoke on the organization’s history of service.

Particularly important were the vision and dedication of current Board Chairman Jerry Kaynard and Past-President of the Charleston County Bar Association Mark Tanenbaum in creating the current organization and its sponsorship by the Bar.  The charter members and Board of Trustees are a who’s who of legal service in Charleston: President Coming Gibbs; Vice-President Arthur Rosenblum; Secretary-Treasurer Judge Richard Fields; along with Trustees Laurence Stoney, Joseph McGee, I.M. Goldberg, and Bernard Fielding. The Charleston County Bar Association thanks all these people who are responsible for this organization, along with the current Executive Director Alissa Lietzow, staff attorney Michael Harrington, CPBLS’s Board of Directors, and all of the Bar members who have generously provided services through CPBLS during the past fifty years.

The Charleston County Bar Association is extraordinarily proud to have worked with CPBLS for fifty years, and we look forward to the next fifty.

Mayor John Tecklenburg reading the Proclamation.

 

CCBA President Scott Moise next to three CPBLS Board Members: Howard Yates, Judge Garfinkel, and Barbara Nelson

 

 

CPBLS Board Chairman Jerry Kaynard, Mayor John Tecklenburg, and CPBLS Director Alissa Lietzow

 

City Councilman and President Elect of the Charleston County Bar Association Peter Shahid(Shahid Law Office); Jerry Kaynard (Kaynard Law); Mayor John Tecklenburg; CPBLS Director Alissa Lietzow; Charleston County Bar Association President Scott Moïse (Nelson Mullins); CPBLS Board Members Howard Yates (Joseph H. Yates, Jr, Attorney at Law), Judge Paul Garfinkel (Young Clement Rivers), and Barbara Nelson; and Ackerman Fellows Alyssa Agostino, Natalie Gideon, and Sadaf Chaudhry.
Additional Board members who were unable to attend the ceremony because of conflicts are Vice-Chairman John Robinson (McDowell & Robinson), Treasurer Karl Novak (Richardson Patrick), and Board Members Brett Barker (Associate Dean of Students, Charleston School of Law) Anne Francis Bleecker (Bleecker Law Firm), Rosa Britt, Allan Holmes (Gibbs & Holmes), and Dexter O’Connell (City of Charleston).

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