St. Petersburg's McGowan named a community hero; prize benefits the Community Law Program - The Florida Bar
Tom McGowan was not quite ready to retire when he wound down his law practice in late 2019, after having devoted over 40 years representing clients in family law. Instead, he joined the staff of Community Law Program, Inc., a non-profit firm and Florida Bar Foundation grantee, focused on providing access to justice for low-income Pinellas County residents.
On January 15, at the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Dallas Stars Game, The Lightning Foundation and the Vinik Family Foundation honored McGowan as a 2022 Lightning Community Hero, and presented Community Law Program with a $50,000 grant to continue the organization’s Family Law Litigation Project.
According to recent Pinellas County Clerk of Court records, only 10.6% of petitioners and 6% of respondents out of the over 9,300 family law cases filed in Pinellas County were represented by counsel. The Family Law Litigation Project helps provide a level playing field in family law matters involving issues of support and timesharing, most particularly when the other side is represented.
When McGowan joined the Community Law Program staff in 2019, it had received a grant from The Florida Bar Foundation’s Engle Grant Program. With this grant, Community Law Program was able to provide representation in court to nearly 100 low-income Pinellas County residents like “Jennifer.” McGowan helped Jennifer reunite with her two young sons, whose father (now a resident of Montana) had managed to get custody of them from Jennifer and abuse them while in his care. When Jennifer came to CLP for help, McGowan filed an action in Pinellas County to domesticate and modify the Montana custody decree. When the case was over, she wrote to McGowan saying, “Thank you for everything you did for me and the boys. It means so much. So glad you do what you do for others.”
CLP was also able to place extended service cases with volunteer attorneys as well as recruit and coordinate volunteer attorneys and law students, who helped self-represented litigants complete Supreme Court approved family law forms needed to initiate their own family law action. During the ABA’s National Celebration of pro bono this past year, Community Law Program partnered with Bay Area Legal Services and together hosted a virtual family law forms clinic for qualified pro se litigants in the Sixth Circuit. The Engle Grant Program provided funding to Community Law Program through 2021, and had it not been for the Lightning Foundation, the Vinik Family Foundation, and many individual donors, including a number of members of the St. Petersburg Bar Association who gave to the organization’s Giving Tuesday campaign, this project would have come to an end, according to the Community Law Program.
“Governmental funding to help families dealing with issues related to child and spousal support and time-sharing with children is virtually non-existent,” said Kimberly Rodgers, executive director of Community Law Program. “Yet, family law continues to be the greatest unmet civil legal need of the poor. The Florida Bar Foundation’s Engle Grant has enabled us to provide life-changing assistance to so many in our community who, without us, would not have had a fighting chance in court. And now this award from The Lightning Foundation will enable us to continue this important work.”
source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-news/st-petersburgs-mcgowan-named-a-community-hero-prize-benefits-the-community-law-program/
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