The Girl Scout law.

• Author: Kinnally, Nancy Maass
• Position: Lavinia Vaughn - Pro Bono Pros

A shareholder with Carlton Fields in Tampa, Lavinia Vaughn will expertly explain the team approach her firm takes in representing lenders, borrowers, and developers, but if you really want to hear her gush, ask her about what she and the firm's real estate and finance team have done for girls.

"I'm pretty passionate about working for girls, and, in my experience, girls who are Girl Scout members and participate in Girl Scout programs tend to become very confident. They tend to become leaders," Vaughn said. "I can't tell you how many judges, architects, engineers, and other professionals I've encountered who participated in Girl Scouts as girls, or got involved as adults."

Vaughn grew up in a scouting family in eastern North Carolina, and later, as the mother of two daughters, she founded and led their Girl Scout troops. For a dozen years or so, she also handled cookie sales for 50 troops in the Tampa area.

"Because of that contact, and because of our partner Sylvia Walbolt's work with the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida, our local council, I was asked to serve on the board of directors," Vaughn said.

As a real estate and finance attorney, Vaughn was invited to sit on the Girl Scout Council's Property Committee, and then to serve as chair of their Program and Properties Task Force.

The task force is charged with conducting a thorough review of the Girl Scouts' more than 1,000-acre property portfolio in an eight-county area. As part of the council-wide strategic visioning, the group is working to position the properties to meet the programmatic needs of the nearly 12,000 girls who use the camps each year and the untold thousands who will use them in the future. The council currently owns five camp properties and leases two in Florida, and has three donated lots in the mountains of North Carolina.

"I thought of the fact we were going to need title information, surveys, and survey reviews--kind of a comprehensive due diligence on all of these real properties, which fit into my toolbox," Vaughn said. "I then approached [fellow Carlton Fields shareholder] Kathy McLeroy and talked to her about pro bono work that would encompass all of this and would allow real estate paralegals, land use and zoning [attorneys], and other people at the firm in the transaction group to have the opportunity to provide pro bono service."

Since that time, four attorneys and two real estate paralegals from Carlton Fields have been working on the project, which began...