Georgia Bar Foundation Awards $2.55 Million in Bank of America Settlement Funds

• Jurisdiction: Georgia,United States
• Citation: Vol. 24 No. 6 Pg. 0026
• Pages: 0026
• Publication year: 2019

Georgia Bar Foundation Awards $2.55 Million in Bank of America Settlement FundsNo. Vol. 24 No. 6 Pg. 26Georgia Bar JournalJune, 2019

GBJ | Feature

Georgia Bar Foundation Awards $2.55 Million in Bank of America Settlement Funds

To date, the Georgia Bar Foundation has awarded a total of $11,454,754 in Bank of America settlement funds. A total of $2,550,000 remains to be awarded from those funds and will probably be awarded within the next two years.

BY LEN HORTON

The Board of Trustees of the Georgia Bar Foundation awarded $2,550,000 to four law-related organizations at its April meeting. This was the third round of awards since the Georgia Bar Foundation began receiving Bank of America settlement funds. The amount awarded was half of what remained after making awards in rounds one and two.

“Everyone was focused on making the very best use of the money announced in the RFP,” said Georgia Bar Foundation President Kitty Cohen. “It wasn't easy because we had nine excellent proposals. We finally decided on four that we thought were the very best.

Atlanta Legal Aid, one of two Legal Services Corporations grantees in Georgia, received $956,250 to continue funding its Home Defense Program, which is widely considered the leading legal aid program in the nation protecting homeowners against foreclosure. Foreclosure legal assistance was the primary purpose of the Bank of America settlement funds.

Another purpose of these Bank of America settlement funds, which was also supported in the award to Atlanta Legal Aid, is community redevelopment legal assistance. The Georgia Bar Foundation approved of Atlanta Legal Aid's partnering with Georgia Appleseed, the Truancy Intervention Project and the Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta to revitalize Georgia communities hardest...