SeniorLAW Center is delighted to honor these outstanding individuals and organizations at its annual fundraiser and celebration on Friday, April 1st, 2011 at The Westin Philadelphia.
Blank Rome LLP, a prominent law firm, will be awarded the 2011 Partner of the Year Award for its support and many partnerships with SeniorLAW Center to improve the lives of Pennsylvania seniors. In 2010-11, Blank Rome’s attorneys and staff have worked closely with SeniorLAW Center to provide pro bono legal services to over 70 low-income elders through special clinics held in their own communities to help them prepare advance planning documents, have partnered with SeniorLAW Center on MLK Day activities assisting seniors, and have helped senior clients obtain title to the homes they live in. For the past decade, Blank Rome has provided strong leadership on SeniorLAW Center’s board of directors.
Harry S. Gross is being honored as SeniorLAW Center’s 2011 Senior Champion of the Year. For many years, first on the radio and then as a columnist for The Daily News, Mr. Gross, a CPA, has offered advice to an audience comprised predominately of seniors on how to protect their rights as consumers against fraud and financial exploitation. He always spoke and now writes in a down to earth, easy to understand style. He exemplifies SeniorLAW Center’s core values of excellence and compassion and adds to that his own unique wit, while providing community education that not only empowers the individual who has the problem but everyone else reading his advice. Harry has been protecting the rights of seniors since his radio show debuted over 30 years ago.
Ethan D. Fogel, Esquire, a partner at Dechert, LLP, has a deep history of public service and commitment to public interest law and service to the poor and is being honored as SeniorLAW Center’s Volunteer of the Year. Mr. Fogel has led pro bono projects to protect the rights and prevent homelessness of low-income elders, particularly in the area of landlord/tenant court, and has been instrumental in advocating for a civil right to counsel and creating new resources for the unrepresented. In addition to handling individual cases as a volunteer attorney for SeniorLAW Center, Mr. Fogel leads his firm’s pro bono efforts and inspires others, from law students to experienced attorneys, to give their time and talents to serving the poor. He has also used his both his legal and linguistic skills to serve Latino elders in their own languages and neighborhoods as part of SeniorLAW Center’s many bilingual legal clinics.