As you know, the virus and its aftermath continues in our state. Here in Orange County and elsewhere across the state, we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel as restaurants are now open for dine-in experience and you can now get your hair fixed or cut at your usual barber shop or salon.
While we missed the Rancho Valencia board meeting, we are still on the calendar for the next meeting in person at the Pasea Hotel in Huntington Beach on August 21-22, 2020. The Executive Committee Meeting will take place on Friday, August 21, from 11:30am to 1:30pm, and the Board Meeting will take place from 2:00pm to 4:30pm on that Friday as well at the Pasea Hotel. We will select the Trial Lawyer of the Year the next day on Saturday with a dinner that night at the hotel to celebrate.
We still intend to pick from among the eight great candidates that we have for Trial Lawyer of the Year. The eight candidates from each chapter are as follows:
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California Coast
John H. Howard
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Los Angeles
Linda Miller Savitt
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Orange County
Eric V. Traut
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Sacramento Valley Dominique Pollara
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San Bernardino/Riverside
Michael J. Marlatt
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San Francisco
Cynthia McGuinn
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San Joaquin Valley Dennis R. Thelen
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We have made arrangements with the hotel to make certain that we follow proper health and safety guidelines in both our meeting on Friday and our meeting on Saturday as well as the dinner Saturday night.
Further, I am pleased to inform you that Wally Yoka still has us on schedule for this year's
Hawaii Conference
at the timeless Mauna Kea Beach Hotel in Hawaii from November 2-7, 2020. That Board Meeting will be November 4, 2020. The Executive Committee will meet from 8:30am to 9:45am. The Board will be meeting from 10:00am to 12:00pm.
Christopher P. Wesierski
President, CAL-ABOTA
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CAL-ABOTA 2020 COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD RECIPIENT
KIM VALENTINE, OPERATION HELPING HANDS
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I have one really inspiring and good piece of news to convey to you which we all need. We were able to decide early and pick a Community Service Award Recipient, and my congratulations go to Kim Valentine from the OC Chapter of ABOTA as the 2020 CAL-ABOTA awardee.
I can see no better way to inform you about her then to give you the email, with her permission, she sent me when she wholeheartedly thanked the CAL-ABOTA Board for her selection as the winner:
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I am most proud however of our recent efforts that we haven’t posted about as of yet. First off, we have raised tens of thousands of dollars for individuals displaced by national disasters, most notably the Paradise Fire and the Nashville Hurricane. We gave that money directly to those displaced. You can find more info on that on our
OHH Facebook page
if you wanted. But our most recent project is one that we just started during COVID-19. We knew we couldn’t go out and do our normal projects due to shelter in place. So we took the time to partner with Santa Ana College Foundation. Together we found a housing-insecure student, to whom we have now pledged a monthly housing stipend for one year to help this student graduate from college. The student we selected is a single mom of three who also houses her mother as well. As such, we are hoping to impact many lives from this endowment. We begin the monthly stipend in August. Just thought you would like to know the latest and greatest. I am very proud of our little grass roots organization. Thank you for your support and for this opportunity and award.
The following is Kim's inspiring story:
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“Where Will I Sleep? "Will I have a roof over my head?"
Anyone forced into homelessness has asked themselves those questions, and anyone who has asked themselves those questions has never forgotten how it made them feel.
My name is Kim Valentine. At the age of 14, I was asking myself those questions. That is why I founded Operation Helping Hands, a non-profit organization that provides essential hygiene and necessity items to homeless individuals throughout Southern California with the participation of local youth.
Homelessness comes in all forms. Sometimes yes, it is the result of poor life choices. Yet often times, individuals are forced into homelessness due to circumstances beyond their control. Some like myself chose the unstable life of homelessness over a predictably dangerous and abusive situation. Thus, one day I was the 9th grade student body president and straight-A student, and the next, I was living on the street.
At first, I thought I could manage homelessness indefinitely. I hid some clothes under a friend’s bed and would shower at her house after her parents left for work. After class I wandered the streets looking for shelter for the night.
Sometimes I would sleep in unlocked apartment laundry rooms. When I couldn’t find a place with a roof, I would sleep on the lawn of a friend’s apartment complex so I wouldn’t feel so alone. When all else failed, I would sleep at the beach.
As time passed, school became too much of a burden, as it was increasingly difficult to hide my situation. Finding food and shelter was my main priority, and so I quit school. Besides, I felt so unimaginably embarrassed.
As a homeless person it is nearly impossible to maintain basic standards of hygiene. Friends will help you for a while, but they move on with their lives. There is no place to store your necessities. Showers are limited to the cold-water spigots at the beach. Dirt and grime are rooted so deeply into your skin, that a simple cold shower without soap cannot scrub it clean. Washing your hair without shampoo just leaves a ratted, smelly mess.
Eventually, police picked me up, and I moved to multiple foster and group homes until I was emancipated at 16 years old. I was on my own again, but old enough to work. My waitressing income paid for dive motel rooms. I eventually joined the U.S Marines, which turned my life around. I returned to school and received my law degree from Western State University. I went on to become an attorney representing vulnerable individuals, advocating on their behalf. It is funny how life comes full circle.
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Despite my own circumstances improving, I always remained keenly aware of the local homeless. While my main mission at Operation Helping Hands is to help the homeless as someone who understands their needs and struggles, I began this project in 2011 with another objective in mind as well. My motivation also stemmed from my hope to educate and empower my own three children. As my children grew older I recognized that they believed everyone led the same, comfortable lives that they did. I wanted them to appreciate the privileges and opportunities granted to them, and to instill within them a sense of social responsibility and understanding for those less fortunate.
Operation Helping Hands began as a small effort in my garage. One day, my children, some of their friends, and I filled up 50 brown bags of hygiene products and blankets. We then went to a heavily populated homeless area to personally deliver the bags. My youngest son passed out the first bag to a woman who thanked him profusely, exclaiming that it was her only Christmas gift. My son, clearly touched and astounded by this proclamation, looked up at me and asked, “So we are going to go find more people right?” I knew this was the beginning of something truly special.
However, it was clear that our 50 brown bags were grossly inadequate. I knew from personal experience that these items would be quickly lost or discarded if the homeless did not have a way to transport them. I decided to purchase backpacks to fill up instead. I added t-shirts, sweatshirts, socks, flip flops, beanies, ponchos, and gloves, depending on the season.
The positive impact of this project on my own children and their friends motivated me to reach out to local high schools to involve other teenagers as well. Now, approximately 200 teenagers volunteer to assemble the packs for each event, or individually hand them out on delivery day. We currently package and deliver about 2,500 backpacks a year. Somehow, it never feels like enough.”
If you would like to donate to Operation Helping Hands you can do so at
www.ohhsc.com
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For those of you who are not acquainted with Ms. Valentine, she is an attorney who specializes in plaintiff elder abuse cases with an office in Mission Viejo. Kim hopes to be in Hawaii to receive this award.
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REPORT ON BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
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We had our recent Board of Directors meeting on Thursday, May 28, 2020 from 5:00pm to 6:15pm via Zoom. At that time, we did something that no other CAL-ABOTA meeting has ever done and that is we checked on the status as to each chapter due to COVID-19 and their courts. Most of the courts are in the process of opening or have opened, but it is going to be a different process, for a jury trial in a lot of the courts, than we have ever had before.
We also heard from the committees in regard to what is happening with those committees and then we had chapter reports in regard to what is happening in their chapter as they try to shelter in place and still hold their Zoom meetings or conferences.
During that meeting, I shared two letters that had been written. The first letter was drafted by Wally Yoka written May 15, 2020, to the Hon. Joyce Hinrichs asking that the courts do whatever is possible to open up including using reasonable remote working methods. We gave suggestions for processing civil and probate cases that were drawn from various courts. We stated at the end, "CAL-ABOTA, its chapters and its members, stand ready to help in every way possible." That letter can be found
HERE.
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Further, we shared a letter sent to Martin Hoshino, the Administrative Director for the Judicial Council as well as the Hon. Marsha Slough Associate Justice Court of Appeal from the Consumer Attorneys of California, the California Defense Counsel and the California Chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates. That letter also asked about access to justice for thousands of civil cases and indicated that the courts needed to find a way to operate during the crisis and insure justice for civil litigants does not come to a complete halt. We asked for a statewide approach in that letter and we asked, that as the courts reopen, that a reasonable number of civil courtrooms reopen as well. The letter expressed that "while we understand the constitutional preference for the criminal cases, civil litigants who may have lost their jobs and face other hardships must not be abandoned."
Both of these letters kept us in the forefront requesting civil action by the courts wherever possible in this difficult time.
The letter to Mr. Hoshino and Justice Slough can be found by
CLICKING HERE.
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In regards to the recent demonstrations that have occurred because of the Geoge Floyd death, there was a message sent by the San Francisco Chapter through its president, Doris Cheng. That letter states, in part, "We are each in a position to speak the truth, to demand justice, to stand for whoever and whatever benefits humanity. Our commitment to the core principal of ABOTA's mission demands no less."
Please take a moment to read the letter below in its entirety as it speaks out against systemic racism and we at CAL-ABOTA also feel the same way.
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NOW IS THE TIME TO END RACIAL INJUSTICE
By Doris Cheng, President, ABOTA | San Francisco Chapter
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The ABOTA mission statement recognizes: “America’s greatness lies in its people. And in its people lies the foundation of justice – trial by jury.” To believe in the Seventh Amendment, we must first love, respect and value people. If we truly value people, it is our duty to denounce anything and anyone who violates human dignity. Failing to rebuke such injustice subverts the heart and soul of ABOTA’s mission. It is, therefore, our obligation to speak out against the systemic racism that continues to choke the lifeblood of our civil democracy.
Last week, a Minneapolis police officer crushed and extinguished a human life, while three other officers stood by and endorsed the unlawful killing of George Floyd. In just the last decade, we have witnessed the same violence perpetrated against one black person after another. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Oscar Grant. John Crawford III. Ezell Brown. Laquand McDonald. Eugene Ellison. Terrence Crutcher. Antwon Rose II. Stephon Clark. The list goes on. It is important to say their names so that we do not lose sight of the value of their human lives and the meaning of these countless deaths. While the list is long, our memories cannot be short. We cannot be indifferent. Elie Wiesel’s poignant insight challenges us to care: “Indifference is the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor — never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten…. not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”
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The ABOTA Foundation “envisions equal justice for all in a vibrant and civil democracy.” Even when we feel atrophied and wasted from persisting worry about all who matter to us during this pandemic, we cannot surrender our conscience or our mission to fatigue. Even when we are powerless to prevent injustice, there must never be a time when we fail to protest. Because silence is betrayal, we are called upon to demand that our justice system hold accountable those who trespass against human rights and equal justice.
Fifty-three years later, we must still take the same stand as Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967: “Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.” We are each in a position to speak the truth, to demand justice, to stand for whoever and whatever benefits humanity. Our commitment to the core principles of ABOTA’s mission demands no less.
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ABOTA LOSES FRIEND, BILL RODIGER
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Sadly, ABOTA lost a long time member and well known trial lawyer, Bill Rodiger, from the firm Kinkle, Rodiger and Spriggs. Here is his biography. He will be missed by many.
August 8, 1924 - May 22, 2020 Bill was born in Chippewa Falls, WI, the son of Idella and Eckhardt Rodiger. He graduated from UW-Madison, served in the Army in WWII, received his law degree from Harvard in 1949. He started his law career with the firm of Parker Stanbury in Los Angeles and later formed the firm that eventually became Kinkle, Rodiger and Spriggs with offices in LA, Santa Ana, Riverside, Ventura and San Diego. In the 1960s and '70s he was active on the boards of The Pasadena Symphony and Pasadena Planning Commission. Bill served the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles as a Vice Chancellor for more than 30 years. He was elected a Deputy to 4 General Conventions, and was named an Honorary Canon of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul in 1993 by Bp. Borsch in recognition of his many contributions to the diocese. He was a member of All Saints Church, Pasadena, where he served several terms on the Vestry, as Sr. Warden, and on many church committees.He is survived by his wife of 36 years Harriet McNary, his children from his previous marriage Georgiana "Cristy," William "Biff," James (Susan) and John, 6 grandchildren and several nieces and nephews. His daughter Margaret and sister Diane preceded him in death. Private services will be held later in the summer at All Saints Church, Pasadena.
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The Mauna Kea will be waiting for you this November 2-7, 2020 for the Annual
CAL-ABOTA Hawaii Conference
where we celebrate the elected Trial Lawyer of the Year.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION
. Flights are reasonably priced at this time and you may want to book your stay now at the Mauna Kea as Wally Yoka has come up with a great list of speakers as well as great entertainment during that week.
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Don’t forget to submit to
Jennifer@Caladmanagement.com your civility award winner for your chapter to also be honored at the
Hawaii Conference.
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