VLSP Nominates State Bar Pro Bono Award Candidates
by Mary Cook

To recognize their commitment to indigent clients, the Voluntary Legal Services Program nominated solo practitioner Kelly Smith and Borden Webb, Deborah Patterson, and Carlena Tapella of Webb, Patterson & Tapella for 2001 State Bar pro bono awards. Kelly Smith was recommended for the Jack Berman Award of Achievement, given to an attorney in his first five years of practice. The firm of Webb, Patterson & Tapella was selected as VLSP's choice for the State Bar President's Pro Bono Service Award in the small law firm category.

Smith began volunteering with VLSP in 1995 while still a student at the University of Northern California Lorenzo Patino School of Law. Since then, he has donated nearly 400 hours of service to VLSP clients, unlawful detainer his specialty. "It keeps me off the streets," joked Smith of his pro bono work.

Deborah Patterson, Borden Webb, Carlena Tapella

Sipping coffee at his desk, Smith detailed his journey from cub reporter in Seattle to editor of a weekly in Santa Cruz, a job so arduous and low-paying that it "took ten years off my life," Smith confided, chuckling. Environmental issues were his passion, from nuclear power plants to recycling.

With a growing family to support, however, Smith left journalism and became an environmental advocate and consultant, getting involved with Californians Against Waste. He attended law school at night and passed the Bar in 1998, opening his own office in downtown Sacramento. He focuses on environmental issues in his practice as well, and also tackles real property cases. "I'm doing the sort of thing I did as a journalist," mused Smith, "I've always leaned toward the underdog. I see people who need legal help-they're losing their house or, with public housing, getting run around by the government."

One of his more memorable VLSP cases involved a developmentally disabled man who could not read the notices he was receiving. "He almost lost his house," Smith explained. "We saved it-and I credit the counsel on the other side who was willing to work with us."

In addition to helping VLSP clients, Smith takes landlord/tenant referrals from the Sacramento County Bar Association that become "lengthy, free consultations." "Obviously, if they can't pay rent, they can't pay an attorney," he observed. "I tell them how to present their cases before a judge-it's like a quasi-clinic. Unfortunately, often they've waited too long to respond." As a board member, Smith also does pro bono work for local nonprofits such as the Urban Fatherhood Project and Families in Self-Help, the latter a program in West Sacramento that provides training in urban agriculture as well as family support services to immigrants.

"I'll be a lawyer till I die," declared Smith, whose sideburns are just starting to gray. "I figure I'll always be able to do something to help people."

For Borden Webb and his associates Deborah Patterson and Carlena Tapella, their desire to help people navigate the guardianship process prompted them to get involved in establishing the Probate Section Assistance Clinic, which meets two days a week at the William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse. A joint project of VLSP and the Sacramento County Bar Association's Probate and Estate Planning Section, the clinic opened in November 1999. Three-fourths of its clients are women, and the majority of these are seeking guardianship of grandchildren left parentless by a mother's death, incarceration, or addiction.

"It's so satisfying to have a place where people can come in once or twice and their goal will be accomplished: They'll have their papers in order for a guardianship or conservatorship," related Patterson. "The feeling it gives you to realize how people's lives will be affected."

"Many people don't understand the court process, so we do a lot of explaining-about procedure and the facts of their case," chimed in Webb, sitting with Patterson and Tapella at their office conference table. "And just doing that makes a big difference in their lives."

All three not only volunteer at the clinic but also accept VLSP referrals for direct representation. Close to Tapella's heart is the case of a young man who wanted to raise the child he had had by a girlfriend, but the maternal grandparents were seeking guardianship. "This was a father who so desperately wanted to raise his daughter, and I had always admired how tender, loving, and patient he was with her," Tapella reflected. "Here he was, going up against people who had the money to hire an attorney, and he was so hampered by his lack of education and poverty." Because of its complications, Tapella put in 120 hours on the case.

Webb, who joined VLSP in 1982, a year after it was founded and even before it began tracking volunteers' hours, has handled many direct representation cases and has also taught MCLE
classes for VLSP.

The firm also takes pro bono cases on its own. "People will call in and I feel so badly for them," remarked Tapella, who describes herself as "an emotional person." "When things don't go their way I wish there was something more I could do for them, but I can't change the laws and I can't change the facts," she continued, sighing.

Established in 1994, the firm specializes in probate law, with Borden Webb a state-certified specialist. Prior to going to law school, Webb served four years in Army Intelligence, including a year in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Patterson taught elementary school for seven years before becoming an attorney, and Tapella started out as Webb's receptionist 22 years ago, training as a paralegal and eventually earning her JD All three are graduates of McGeorge School of Law and have a combined 40 years of legal experience.