Andrea Ross, a volunteer attorney with Mid-Shore Pro Bono, received a 2019 Maryland Pro Bono Service award in advance this month at the annual Maryland State Bar Association meeting in Ocean City.

Ross changed into provided with the 2019 Lee A. Caplan Award in reputation for her willpower and dedication to making sure identical get entry to civil felony offerings through her paintings with Mid-Shore Pro Bono’s Economic Stability Project.

Since transferring to the Eastern Shore in 2013 after training financial ruin regulation in New York City, Ross has volunteered at monthly Debtor Assistance Clinics. Low-earnings clients acquire unfastened half of-hour financial disaster consultations with a licensed lawyer.

A resident of Kent County, Ross identified the want to expand those services past Talbot County and was instrumental in developing the 2nd location for Debtor Assistance Clinics in Chestertown. During her six years as a volunteer legal professional, Ross has provided 433 hours of seasoned bono time to 535 clients.

“While only at the Eastern Shore for a brief time, Andrea diagnosed the particular challenges low-earnings customers face in a rural network. The Eastern Shore’s massive land area can be a barrier to a patron attending to the legal offerings they need. Many lack transportation and most can’t have enough money to take off from work for the time required to journey to a hospital or meet with an attorney,” said Sandy Brown, Mid-Shore Pro Bono executive director. “In addition to providing our customers with compassionate and pinnacle-notch representation, Andrea has additionally been a partner and recommend in our efforts to carry civil felony offerings to all corners of the Eastern Shore.”

Mid-Shore Pro Bono connects low-income people and families who want civil felony services with volunteer attorneys and community resources. The company serves residents across Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

State Attorney General Letitia James is growing a brand new office to promote the surroundings of “recognition and open-mindedness” in her branch.
Sandra Grannum, who has been with the legal professional widespread’s office for almost 17 years, is being tapped with James’s aid to be the organization’s first diversity and inclusion officer. Since 2007, she has served as director of criminal recruitment, where she extended the organization’s diversity efforts in recruitment.

“Diversity, fairness, and inclusion had been the Clarion name of Attorney General James in the course of her career, and the urgency to heed that name is now greater than ever,” Grannum said in a declaration.

James, who took office in January, stated in an assertion that the brand new workplace is a “crucial step” in fostering a various and inclusive administrative center representing the people of New York.

The estranged husband of lacking Connecticut mom Jennifer Dulos who’s charged in connection along with her disappearance, broke his silence Wednesday — as his attorney cautioned, she devoted “revenge suicide.”

“I just want to inform my youngsters that they’re constantly on my mind and that I love them and miss them very tons,” Fotis Duclos told a crowd of journalists outside Stamford Superior Court before leaping right into a Ford pickup truck.

His crook protection lawyer, Norm Pattis, stated the real estate developer, fifty-one, “has facts that can help shed mild on Jennifer’s disappearance” and desires to meet with prosecutors.

“You heard us say these days in court remarks that Jennifer made to Mr. Dulos that provide us top-notch concern for her safety and properly-being,” Pettis stated. “We are actively thinking of the revenge suicide hypothesis as a reason behind her disappearance.”

“He can talk what Jennifer told him inside the weeks before her disappearance,” the attorney endured. “We will soon be arranging what’s known as a proffer consultation. Under that, he can be waiving his Fifth Amendment right against incrimination due to the fact we don’t assume the feedback incriminate him.”
Fotis, who is free on $500,000 bail, become in court docket for a listening to in his divorce case against Jennifer, who changed into ultimate seen May 24.