The Jackson, Mississippi office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings engages in a variety of pro bono work, including volunteering for legal services organizations, handling death penalty appeals, and representing public interest organizations.
The firm’s lawyers are active supporters of the Mississippi Volunteer Lawyers Project and the Mississippi Center for Justice. Attorneys in the Jackson office undertake representation of individual clients referred by these organizations. In addition, our lawyers regularly answer calls to a hotline run by the MVLP for individuals with basic legal questions, and staff MVLP’s legal clinic for homeless persons at Stewpot Community Services. Attorneys in the Jackson office, with volunteers from almost a dozen other local firms, recently developed a manual of legal research and forms for the MVLP. MVLP’s volunteer lawyers across the state use the manual in representing clients in need of free legal services. Bradley Arant Boult Cummings lawyers have also organized and taught trial practice courses for legal services lawyers.
The firm’s Mississippi lawyers have represented numerous inmates on death row in post-conviction challenges to their convictions and sentences. The firm has one such Mississippi case at this time.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, virtually every attorney in the Jackson office provided pro bono service to hurricane victims via a telephone hotline established by the Young Lawyers Division of the Mississippi State Bar, through service at one of the many Disaster Recovery Centers on the Gulf Coast, and through handling cases referred to the firm through that process. The firm’s Mississippi lawyers continue to handle pro bono cases for individuals still dealing with the repercussions of that disaster.
In recent years, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings lawyers represented a statewide class of children in foster care in a suit brought against the Mississippi Department of Human Services. The case resulted in the State’s agreement to make numerous reforms of its foster care system.
In recognition of these contributions, the Hinds County Bar Association awarded the Jackson office of Bradley Arant its Pro Bono award for 2005-2006, and the Mississippi Bar Association awarded the office its 2006 Curtis E. Coker Access to Justice Award. The Access to Justice Award is given to a lawyer who has made significant contributions to securing access to the legal system for persons who need it. The firm’s receipt of the award in 2006 marked the first time that the award was given to a law firm, rather than to an individual. Several attorneys in the office also have been individually recognized for their pro bono contributions, most recently with Jeffrey Blackwood being honored by the Hinds County Bar Association as their pro bono award recipient for 2009.