Contact: Catherine Galloway
cgalloway@texasatj.org | 512-427-1892
Champions of Justice Gala Benefiting Veterans Raises $336,000
General Peter Pace: Thank you for taking care of the veterans and their families in the great state of Texas
Media Note: Photos from the event are available at on Flickr.
AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Access to Justice Commission with its co-sponsor, the State Bar of Texas, honored veterans throughout the state at the Champions of Justice Gala Benefitting Veterans last night at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in Austin. More than $336,000 was raised to help provide civil legal services to low-income Texan veterans.
The gala, now in its sixth year, has raised nearly $2.5 million since its inception. Proceeds are distributed by the Texas Access to Justice Foundation and dedicated to the provision of civil legal services for low-income Texas veterans. These services assist in addressing legal issues related to marital problems, difficulties in getting medical or disability benefits, wrongful foreclosures, or other situations that may arise due to a veteran’s absence during military service.
This year’s James B. Sales Boots on the Ground award was given to Bronwyn Blake, legal director with the Texas Advocacy Project, who has dedicated over a decade to improving the lives of domestic violence survivors in Texas. The award recognizes a legal services program attorney or pro bono attorney who gives selflessly to help low-income Texans.
Keynote speaker General Peter Pace, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered vivid examples the life of a service member and shared his experience while serving in Vietnam. Our service members understand the probability that they could sacrifice their lives for fellow Americans, yet they do it anyway. He stressed how much their families serve the nation equally well. They stand in the background, supporting their loved ones who are fighting for this country, and pretend they had nothing to do with it. But they have everything to do with it the selfless sacrifices of their service members, because they themselves also sacrifice in so many ways, he said.
General Pace expressed his gratitude to the attorneys of Texas and the legal aid providers for their work on behalf of service members. “What you do here in Texas for your veterans and their families is known and appreciated by many in active duty.”
“Soldiers endure the battlefield, but the physical and psychological impacts of war last long after they return home,” said Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, liaison to the Commission and emcee for the evening. “When they return to the States, they often find themselves fighting a different kind of battle – for their home, their children, and even for the disability and medical benefits they earned while fighting to protect our country. We must honor and support those who have offered themselves as defenders of our country.”
Justice Harriet O’Neill, formerly of the Supreme Court of Texas, commemorated the Commission’s 15th anniversary, applauding the great paths the Commission has forged in changing the landscape of access to justice in Texas and ensuring low-income Texans have meaningful access to our judicial system.
Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht paid tribute to the late Houston attorney Joe Jamail, longtime supporter of the gala and stalwart advocate of legal services to the poor in Texas. “There are things that are more important than political and personal differences, things that summon to surface our better selves. A love of justice is one of those things,” Hecht said. “Joe believed heart and soul in justice, the thing to which he devoted not only his work but his entire being. He was committed to improving access to justice every way he could.”
General Peter Pace Guest Speaker
General Pace served as the 16th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and dedicated more than 40 years of services in the United States Marine Corps. General Pace is currently serving on the Board of Directors of several corporate entities involved in management consulting, private equity, and cyber security. He is associated with a number of charities focused on supporting the troops and their families and a long-standing member of the Board of Directors for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, a charity that provides scholarship bonds to children of Marines or federal law enforcement personnel who were killed while serving our country.
Champions of Justice Gala Benefiting Veterans
Gala co-chairs include prominent Texas attorneys who are donating their time for the effort: S. Jack Balagia, of Exxon Mobil Corporation in Houston; Jerry K. Clements, of Locke Lord, LLP in Dallas; James R. Leahy, of Greenberg Traurig, LLP in Houston; David R. McAtee, II, of AT&T, Inc. in Dallas; and Reagan A. Reaud, of Privateer Capital Management, LP in Beaumont.
Major sponsors of the event included: AT&T, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Greenberg Traurig, H-E-B, Locke Lord, LLP, the Reaud Foundation, and Vinson & Elkins, LLP.
Texas Legal Aid
More than 5.8 million Texans qualify for civil legal aid, but only one in five actually get the legal help they need. Since its inception in 2001, the Texas Access to Justice Commission has steadily championed efforts to increase financial and pro bono resources to improve access to civil justice for vulnerable Texans. Legal aid organizations help more than 100,000 Texas families each year.
