NFPA Annual Convention Charity

SOLACE (Support of Lawyers/Legal Personnel—All Concern Encouraged)

SOLACE stands for “Support of Lawyers/Legal Personnel—All Concern Encouraged.” SOLACE provides a way for the Federal Bar Association (“FBA”) legal community to reach out in small, but meaningful and compassionate ways, to FBA members and those related to them in the legal community who experience a death, or some catastrophic event, illness, sickness, injury, or other personal crisis. Judge Jay Zainey and Mark Surprenant, in connection with the Louisiana State Bar Association, originally developed the SOLACE program, and in 2016 FBA President Judge Michael Newman made the SOLACE program one of his national priorities for the FBA.

The SOLACE program has helped numerous individuals by handling a wide variety of requests. Examples of past requests and responsive help include securing a medical evacuation airlift from a foreign country, donating furniture to a solo practitioner whose office was consumed by a fire, contributing frequent flyer miles or hotel points for families who cannot afford the travel costs associated with medical treatment, volunteering to care for the dog of an individual who was away from home while receiving cancer treatment, providing a family with meals, lodging, assistance with grocery shopping or child care, or providing non-legal information—whatever the situation may warrant. SOLACE does not, however, handle requests for money.

The FBA’s SOLACE initiative is open to all FBA members and those related to them within the legal community— judges, lawyers, court personnel, paralegals, legal secretaries and their families—not just lawyers.

The New Orleans Paralegal Association has selected this organization as the Charity for the 2017 Convention. Attendees are encouraged to contribute during registration. Donors who give at least $5 are invited to wear jeans on the Friday of the convention.