The law firm of Adams and Reese LLP offers a wide range of legal and professional services from a long list of practice areas, including the oil and gas industry, in ten locations around the country. But the company offers more than that. The firm has been active in community efforts for nearly 20 years.
The firm’s efforts in one particular project, Appleseed, began after the hurricanes of 2005 devastated the Gulf Coast region. At the outset, Adams and Reese contributed dollars and volunteer hours to help the area’s residents, but the firm felt that it could do more. Two Adams and Reese lawyers, Martin Stern and former Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives E. L. “Bubba” Henry, spearheaded the efforts on behalf of the firm to form the partnership with national pro bono organization, Appleseed. Coincidentally, Appleseed was looking to reinvigorate its Louisiana center around the same time.
In January 2007, in the first partnership of its kind, Appleseed entered into an agreement with Adams and Reese to provide one of its partners, Christy F. Kane, as the ConocoPhillips/Adams and Reese Fellow. Kane’s full-time role is to manage and direct Louisiana Appleseed. Stern was elected to Appleseed’s National Board of Directors.
According to Kane, “Appleseed Centers have the expertise, the flexibility and the independence to listen to unheard voices, uncover injustices and win the battles no one else fights.”
In the wake of Katrina there was a significant need in advancing public policy issues. Appleseed took the traditional pro bono projects such as writing wills and providing child in need of care counsel into the public policy arena with projects such as immigrant banking. The goal was, and still is, to get more Louisiana attorneys involved in Appleseed by using their talents and skill sets to better leverage policy and legislative outcomes.
Louisiana Appleseed offers a number of projects to volunteers in the following areas: researching ways to increase access to banks and credit unions for Hispanic and low-income groups; studying the teacher recruitment and retention issue in New Orleans public schools; looking at ways to assist residents affected by title clearing requirements when accessing federal disaster funds; and drafting mental health handbooks to assist lawyers handling cases where mental health issues are a concern and other emerging projects.
Adams and Reese attorneys have embraced the concept and the projects of Louisiana Appleseed, and attorneys are working on all of the aforementioned projects, with over two-dozen volunteers to date in the New Orleans office. Louisiana Appleseed informs the attorneys of volunteer opportunities, and the individual attorneys contact project leaders to determine specific tasks.
Of the more than 24 volunteer Appleseed attorneys, about 10 specialize in energy law, oil and gas litigation, and environmental and toxic torts.
Each Adams and Reese attorney must propose pro bono work and select an initiative as part of his or her professional goals. In addition to the Appleseed partnership, Adams and Reese renewed its commitment to the community by implementing mandatory pro bono hours for all of its nearly 300 attorneys, projecting more than 5,000 hours of pro bono work in 2007. The firm requires 10 hours per attorney for 2007 and will increase it to 20 hours per attorney in 2008. OGFJ
Mikaila Adams | Managing Editor - News
Mikaila Adams has 20 years of experience as an editor, most of which has been centered on the oil and gas industry. She enjoyed 12 years focused on the business/finance side of the industry as an editor for Oil & Gas Journal's sister publication, Oil & Gas Financial Journal (OGFJ). After OGFJ ceased publication in 2017, she joined Oil & Gas Journal and was named Managing Editor - News in 2019. She holds a degree from Texas Tech University.
