Focus: Hope

Focus: Hope

Business and legal leaders gather to support Hillsborough's Bay Area Legal Services.

By David R. Corder

Associate Editor

It was an eclectic display of corporate power. Roy Hellwege, president of Bank of Florida Tampa Bay, attended. So did Ruden McCloskey attorney David Shear, a former Florida Bar president. Former Gov. Bob Martinez of Carlton Fields PA rubbed shoulders with onetime gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride of Tampa's Barnett Bolt Kirkwood Long & McBride. Bayshore Technologies' CEO Peter Anderson joined the group. You know the matter is important when Monsignor Laurence Higgins gives the blessing.

But this wasn't a typical business-networking event, though don't discount the possibility some deal-making took place. No, these powerful Tampa people recently gathered at the Tampa Convention Center to feel good about helping others. It was a time to focus on the accomplishments of Bay Area Legal Services Inc., a nonprofit legal aid group that serves low-income clients in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties.

"The question you may be asking is who is Bay Area Legal Services?" Bales & Weinstein attorney Craig Clendinen, the group's volunteer president, told the audience. "When there is despair, they help to bring hope. When there is darkness, they help bring light."

It's much more than helping indigent clients negotiate the complicated issues of contracts and torts, as Clendinen cited examples of the group's work. In one instance, he notes, staff attorneys helped a beleaguered elderly homeowner avoid a predatory foreclosure. In another, they helped an abused young mother flee from an abusive relationship.

"The first (story) is about an elderly woman who had owned her home for 40 years, needed some repairs done," Clendinen says. "She got about $2,000 in repairs done and a $20,000 mortgage as a result of predatory lending. She ended up having a foreclosure filed against her. She could not keep the home, and was threatened with losing the home she had lived in for 40 years.

"Then you'll hear from another woman who had three children and was in an abusive violent relationship," he adds. "Every night she feared for her life, and the lives of her children. They were in despair. And what you'll find from Bay Area Legal Services is a staff that helps those who cannot help themselves."

Much has transpired since the group organized 37 years ago at Law Inc., says Richard Woltmann, the group's executive director. In 1979, he gave an as an example, the group had a budget of about $700,000 and served fewer than 2,000 clients each year.

"Our main areas of service to clients were in the housing, consumer and public benefits areas," he says. "We did very little then for victims of domestic violence. In fact, many in legal services then argued against that work as not very useful for our clientele. We now know how wrong those arguments were."

Today, the group operates with a budget of about $4.5 million, he adds. Last year, the staff attorneys served 9,600 clients.

"We have dozens of partnerships with social service organizations, bar associations and other groups to serve our clients," he says. "We now have a number of innovative projects to serve clients we hadn't even conceived in 1979."