OVERVIEW OF PUBLIC & COMMUNITY SERVICE SUPPORT
Lerman Senter ("LS") personnel are involved in a wide range of public, community service and volunteer activities. Our attorneys serve as pro bono counsel, mentors, volunteers and fundraisers for a wide range of non-profit, charitable, educational, and professional organizations and programs – locally and nationally. These organizations include the Federal Communications Bar Association (and particularly its charitable foundation), the Minority Media Telecommunications Council, and various charitable and educational associations. Lerman Senter personnel have also been instrumental in the creation and founding of numerous organizations, and have served in prominent leadership roles.
LERMAN SENTER'S COMMITMENTS
While LS attorneys pursue their own individual charitable and pro bono interests, LS as a firm provides both legal and volunteer support to the Federal Communications Bar Association’s Charitable Foundation, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (“MMTC”), Lori’s Hands, Turning the Page, Active Minds, and Formals for Five.
Federal Communications Bar Association
LS regularly participates in the FCBA Foundation’s Annual Holiday Gift Drive, which provides gift cards to families at a local homeless shelter.
In conjunction with the FCBA, LS attorneys, staff and family members help prepare meals for the homeless at Martha’s Table, an organization that feeds hundreds of homeless adults and children in Washington, D.C. daily through its mobile soup kitchen. LS also donates food that is used to prepare the meals, and conducts clothing drives that assist in serving needy families and individuals in Washington, D.C.
Numerous LS Members and Associates assist in the FCBA’s various charitable events, including the annual charity auction.
Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
MMTC is a non-profit, public-interest organization that advocates for diversity in ownership and employment, and participation by minority groups and women in telecommunications industries. LS provides advice and counsel to MMTC in the areas of trademark, copyright, privacy, and regulatory and policy matters pertaining to minority ownership in the broadcasting and wireless industries. The firm is also involved in planning and sponsoring MMTC’s well-attended annual Access to Capital Conference.
LS has been awarded MMTC’s “Distinguished Pro Bono Achievement Award,” and LS Managing Member Steve Lerman and Member S. Jenell Trigg have been awarded MMTC’s Extraordinary Service Awards. Ms. Trigg has also served on the MMTC Board of Directors, and other LS Members have served on MMTC’s various advisory committees and as panelists and moderators for MMTC’s Annual Conference.
Lori’s Hands
LS manages, on a pro bono basis, the trademark work for Lori’s Hands, a volunteer student organization that connects college students with elderly or chronically ill members of the community. Lori’s Hands is based at the University of Delaware, but plans to expand its operations by opening chapters across the country.
Turning the Page
LS collects books from its attorneys, staff and family members for donation to Turning the Page, a nonprofit organization that uses proceeds from the sales of books to support seven Washington, D.C. public elementary schools. LS has donated thousands of books to Turning the Page over the years.
Active Minds
LS works with Active Minds, a non-profit organization with chapters on 308 college campuses, including several in Washington, D.C. Active Minds strives to increase student awareness of young adult mental health issues, to provide information and resources regarding mental health, and to serve as a liaison between students and the mental health community. LS attorneys volunteered at the organization’s annual national conference, held in November 2010 on the campus of George Washington University, and LS also raises funds for this incredible organization.
Formals for Five
LS attorneys, staff and family members contribute clothes and funding to Formals for Five, a charitable organization that makes gently used formalwear available to low-income high school students from Arlington, Virginia. LS has contributed dozens of dresses for young ladies to wear to proms, graduations, and homecomings.
INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF LS COLLEAGUES TO THE COMMUNITY
LS Member and Manager Steve Lerman has raised almost $10 million over the years for student financial aid at the University of Pennsylvania and the George Washington University Law School. He has served for many years as a member of Penn’s Undergraduate Committee on Student Financial Aid. He chaired a Scholarship Initiative for financially disadvantaged DC-area students, for which he received the Distinguished Leadership Award from Penn and the Joseph Wharton Award from The Wharton Club of Washington D.C. He also received the Extraordinary Service Award from the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council for pro bono efforts on MMTC’s behalf. He has created four endowed scholarships for financially disadvantaged students at Penn and GW, served as Vice President of Development and Director of Penn’s Mid Atlantic Regional Advisory Board, and serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at GW Law School.
LS Member Phil Bonomo serves on the Board of Directors of Acorn Hill, a private Waldorf kindergarten and nursery school in Silver Spring, MD. He is also a member of the school’s Executive Committee, serving as Secretary.
LS Member Sally Buckman serves as an officer of the Katherine Thomas School Parent Association. The Katherine Thomas School serves pre-school through 12th grade students with language and learning disabilities and/or high-functioning autism.
LS Member Dennis Corbett dedicates time to the Barker Foundation, an adoption agency based in Bethesda, MD that serves metropolitan Washington. He is currently on Barker’s Nominations Committee, and he previously served on the Board of Trustees. Dennis also previously served on the Board of Trustees of Lowell School, a pre-K through sixth grade school in Washington, D.C.
LS Associate Erin Kim serves as a liaison for the FCBA Foundation’s Scholarship Program, which provides financial assistance for D.C. public high school students to attend a four-year college. She assists the counselors and students at Theodore Roosevelt High School with the application process.
LS Member Lou Levy advises the Ryan O. Mance Foundation, which is dedicated to increasing access to higher education for deserving, talented and qualified African-American high school students. He also provides IP services for the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council.
LS Member Brian Madden serves as Treasurer, Chair of the Finance Committee, and member of the Executive Committee, the Campaign Committee, and the Board of Trustees of Round House Theatre, Inc., a non-profit professional theater company in Bethesda/Silver Spring, MD. He also provides legal advice for the Capitol Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and helps raise funds for JDRF.
LS Associate Rebecca Neumann volunteers at Mt. Vernon Estate and Gardens as part of the Historic Alexandria Docents committee of the Junior League of Washington. She is also a member of the Junior League of Washington. She serves as a board member of the Harvard Divinity School Alumni/ae Council, where she co-chairs two committees – the Alumni Engagement Committee and the Constitution and Bylaws Committee. She has been actively involved in rewriting/amending the Harvard Divinity School Alumni/ae Association Constitution and Bylaws.
LS Member Nancy Ory has served on the Advisory Committee to the Federal Communications Bar Association Annual Charity Auction. In 2010, the Charity Auction raised more than $130,000 for Barker Foundation’s “Project Wait No Longer,” which finds permanent adoptive families for older children in foster care. Nancy also volunteers on the FCBA Privacy and Data Security Committee’s “Pay it Forward” initiative, which is focusing on a Tweens Online Safety and Digital Citizenship Project designed to (i) raise awareness about online safety and digital citizenship for tweens – the earliest group of Internet users, and (ii) review and analyze existing resources that teach tweens about internet safety and privacy, and then “train the trainer” by engaging in effective community outreach in the schools to raise awareness of the availability of materials to teach online safety and digital citizenship. Nancy also serves on the FCBA’s Scholarship Committee, which raises funds and awards college scholarships to D.C. high school students.
LS Member Howard Topel represents the Association of Holocaust Organizations, Inc. on a pro-bono basis. Howard served as Chairman of Old South Country Club’s Pink and Blue Cancer Tournament fundraiser for breast cancer and prostate cancer, which raised $20,000 that was donated to Calvert County and Anne Arundel County, MD hospitals for diagnosis and treatment of breast and prostate cancer.
LS Member Nancy Wolf does volunteer work for Active Minds, where she helped create its “Parents for Active Minds” affiliate that furthers the mission of the organization, which is to increase student awareness of young adult mental health issues.
