What Solace Does for Georgia's Legal Community

• Publication year: 2022
• Pages: 0026

What SOLACE Does for Georgia's Legal Community No. Vol. 28 No. 2 Pg. 26 Georgia Bar Journal October, 2022

Feature

The sole purpose of the SOLACE program is to allow the legal community to reach out in meaningful and compassionate ways to judges, lawyers, court personnel, paralegals, legal secretaries and their families who experience deaths or other catastrophic illnesses, sickness or injury.

BY KINDALL M. HARVILLE

SOLACE (Support of Lawyers/Legal Personnel; All Concern Encouraged) is a program adopted by the State Bar of Georgia during the 2011-12 Bar year, under the leadership of then-President Ken Shigley. SOLACE is overseen by a committee of Bar members and staff, including the current chair, Hon. Clyde Reese, judge, Court of Appeals of Georgia, and vice chair, Hon. Render Heard, judge, Juvenile Courts of the Tifton Judicial Circuit. The first SOLACE program was initiated in 2002 by Hon. Jay Zainey and Mark Surprenant, in connection with the Louisiana State Bar Association, to help lawyers and legal personnel in Louisiana who had experienced catastrophic events that upset their lives. Since that time, numerous other state bar associations and the Federal Bar Association have adopted similar programs for their own legal communities.^[1]

The main purpose of the SOLACE program is to allow members of the legal community to reach out to judges, lawyers, court personnel, paralegals, legal secretaries and their families who experience a sudden catastrophic loss, a medical emergency or other similar situation, and support them in times of need. Actions taken by the SOLACE Committee to assist the legal community can range from simply sending a card signed by local and/ or state leaders to providing the family with meals and/or personal items after a fire; physical assistance when moving items; replacing office equipment/furniture after a loss to water or fire; transportation; medical community contacts and referrals; compassion flights or other similar services. All of these are provided by volunteers from the SOLACE committee's statewide network. It is important to note that SOLACE will not seek or solicit cash contributions, offer the opportunity for public service announcements, or generate a prayer chain or list.

During the 2021 calendar year, the State Bar of Georgia SOLACE Committee received four email requests for assistance, one of which I would like to highlight. SOLACE received the request in early in 2021...