Lynford Lardner Awards
Over the years, many of our colleagues have made significant contributions in and to the communities in which we practice by taking leadership roles and being active in various community and charitable organizations and projects. Giving back to our communities is part of our commitment to good citizenship in the communities in which we live and work, one of our core values, and something the firm strongly encourages, recognizes, and appreciates. To underscore the importance of volunteerism, each year Foley recognizes people throughout our firm whose active community involvement personifies the spirit of Lynford Lardner’s commitment to civic participation.
This year, a committee of past award winners has selected eight attorneys and staff members to receive the Lynford Lardner Award. Each award carries a monetary stipend of $5,000 to be contributed to each recipient’s favorite nonprofit organization, along with a permanent memento that symbolizes the honoree’s accomplishments.
 Christi R. Adams, Associate (Orlando)
Since she began at the firm in 2001, Christi has spent over 500 hours on pro bono cases, including 17 cases in which she acted as a guardian ad litem for abused, abandoned, and neglected children in dependency and termination of parental rights proceedings. Many of the children were victims of horrible physical and sexual abuse. In recognition of her work, the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association awarded Christi the New Attorney Award of Excellence for 2007. She is regarded by the juvenile court judges in Orange County as one of the best guardians ad litem in the circuit, and many of the more difficult, heart-wrenching cases have been directed to her.
Christi's other pro bono work has included: accepting court-appointed representation of indigent criminal defendants at the appellate level; assisting in the representation of a Florida death row inmate; and assisting in a mandamus action against a clerk of court in a successful effort to invalidate onerous filing fee policies that the clerk was imposing against indigent litigants.
Christi also has served as the chair of the City of Orlando Civil Service Board from 2006-2007 and has been involved with Heart of Freedom, Inc. as a director and chair of their gala fundraising event in 2006.
 Martin J. (Marty) Bishop, Senior Counsel (Chicago)
Marty currently serves as the chair of the Pro Bono Committee for Foley's Chicago office and as a member of Foley's National Pro Bono Committee. As chair of the Chicago Pro Bono Committee, Marty has shined a spotlight on pro bono work in the Chicago office. Many attorneys who have previously never been involved in pro bono work have now substantially contributed to matters.
He has donated his time and services to the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, the Lawyers for the Creative Arts, the American Civil Liberties Union, and HotHouse/ Center for International Performance and Exhibition. He has served on HotHouse's board of directors since 2003 and served as the president of the organization from 2004 to 2007. In early 2005, he organized a series of benefit concerts through HotHouse for victims of the Pacific Rim tsunami disaster. It has been through Marty's leadership that Hothouse has been able to survive despite troubling times.
 Charles D. (David) Harper, Partner (Tampa)
For the past ten years, David has volunteered in varying capacities for charitable organizations like Horses for the Handicapped, Metropolitan Ministries, Divine Providence Food Bank, the Pediatric Cancer Foundation, Inc., the 7:24 Foundation, Inc., and others. He serves as secretary of the Pediatric Cancer Foundation and president of the 7:24 Foundation, Inc.
In February 2007, David and members of his local church formed a non-profit charitable foundation to focus the group's effort on one large project for the purpose of raising the most money to benefit the community. David, the president of the foundation, selected a golf tournament as the platform for his fundraising. This decision was a wise one. Within the first two months of forming the foundation, Cadillac, Callaway Golf, Greg Norman, GMAC, Etonic, and a local Cadillac dealer became sponsors of the tournament - contributing more than $33,000. The golf tournament was held September 17, 2007 and raised $40,000 for the Pediatric Cancer Foundation, selected as this year's sole beneficiary. David spent countless hours in meetings, sponsorship activities, fundraising, and organizing this spectacular event.
 Kevin E. Hyde, Partner (Jacksonville)
Kevin has devoted his public and civic service to promoting opportunities and furthering education for disadvantaged youth. In Jacksonville he created three programs to accomplish this: "Homework Zones," 50 sites around Jacksonville where kids can receive homework assistance from volunteer tutors; Prosperity Scholarship Fund, a citizen-funded scholarship fund that last year awarded over $100,000 to low-income college students; and "Job Opportunity Bank," a workplace training program funded by private companies and local government. Kevin also was named as the recipient of the 2006 Equal Access to Justice Award by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid (the highest honor), and as Board Member of the Year by the Youth Crisis Center. He also continues as an elected official and member of the Jacksonville City Council, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida.
 Hannah L. Renfro, Associate (Madison)
While a law student, Hannah co-founded the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Children’s Justice Project (CJP), a student organization committed to promoting justice for children through interdisciplinary teaching, scholarship, and service by educating law students about the breadth and importance of children’s law and encouraging students to pursue careers in children’s law or pro bono work devoted to children. Hannah has served as President of the Advisory Board for that organization since 2005. As a member of the Advisory Board, Hannah fundraises for the summer scholarship program, which she helped to create. With awards from organizations, the law school, and alumni, at least two law students can work in the field of children’s law at summer jobs that would otherwise be unpaid or underpaid. She also mentors law students and helps CJP organize their annual children’s law conference.
Hannah also is a member of the Board of Directors for the Rodney Scheel House Foundation, which operates a low-income housing project for individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to providing legal services for the organization, she organized a community service day on which volunteers completely remodeled the landscaping at the property, and a holiday gift purchase project that raised enough money to purchase gifts for more than 20 residents.
Hannah maintains a relationship with two orphanages in Africa. She volunteered at the Amani Children’s Home and provides one of the children living at the home with financial support for education, medical, and other services. She also traveled to Ethiopia and provides financial support for children living with AIDS.
Since joining Foley, Hannah has worked on several pro bono projects. She has worked on two Eighth Amendment cases on behalf of prisoners and a project for the Rape Crisis Center. Through the National Immigrant Justice Center, Hannah currently represents a gentleman from El Salvador.
 Joel Sandler, Litigation Support Specialist (Los Angeles)
In 2003, Joel began volunteering weekly at a food pantry delivering groceries to the most desperate residents of Washington, D.C. The clients are primarily elderly, handicapped, or families with single mothers and young children. After six months of consistent and dedicated service, Joel was asked to take a position as Saturday morning "dispatcher." This required showing up by 9:00 a.m. each Saturday to manage the delivery routes assigned to the various volunteers, and sticking around at the food bank until all the dust had cleared. In 2004, Joel took on more and more responsibilities and became one of the four individuals running the entire program. Joel then became more involved in the technical end of the program. Two years ago, he designed and created a new Web site for the organization. The next project Joel took on was rebuilding from the ground up a new client and delivery management tool. This past winter and spring, he spent several hundred (non-billable !!!) hours designing a Web-based program that tracks all of the organization’s clients, volunteers, and weekly deliveries. The most exciting feature is that it generates Google maps for each volunteer's route on Saturday mornings (hopefully saving them from getting lost on the confusing streets of D.C.).
Since relocating to Los Angeles this summer, he has continued to manage online volunteer recruitment, database maintenance, and various other ongoing projects for Food For All DC. Aside from this work, Joel was an active member of Foley’s Pro Bono Committee for the D.C. office, and as a paralegal spent hundreds of hours each year contributing to pro bono cases, primarily the Alabama death penalty matters spearheaded in the D.C. office.
 Francine E. Smith, Library Clerk (Washington, D.C.)
Francine participates in the AIDS Walk and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Walk. She sponsors fundraisers within and outside of the office. With JDRF, she is a diligent advocate, lending her time to speak to several organizations, including postal workers, teachers union, the Pentagon, and so forth to raise awareness of diabetes and the work of the JDRF. Francine also bakes cakes and has jeans days in the office to raise money several times a year.
 Wen (Jo) Xu, Legal Assistant (New York)
Jo is an active pro bono volunteer. Currently, she serves as Chair of the Tibetan Aroma Personal Fund, Co-founder and Trustee of the IP First Society, which is an officially licensed non-governmental organization (NGO) in Shanghai, and founder of the career blog channel vigilaw.com. During the China Spring Festival, she led a team to Tibet to donate medicines and vitamins to the monks. As a result, she was selected as one of seven Shanghai volunteers to be interviewed for a documentary television program, which played on a Shanghai Documentary Channel.
She personally manages a running basis of 20,000 renminbi (RMB) fund for supporting the education for poor children. This fund received additional support from the IBM China volunteer group, and Fesco Foreign Companies Service Station. The fund supported orphans in Tibet providing medicine, books, and writing materials.
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