Nonprofit Easter Seals volunteer Steve Rossman and a host of professionals take time to give back to the community by offering their experience.

BY  SHARON HARVEY ROSENBERG
Special to The Miami Herald

With an overnight bag, a cellphone and a round-trip airplane ticket, attorney Steve Rossman raced off to Miami International Airport on July 21 to catch an early flight to Chicago. For Rossman, the weekend trip capped a full week of depositions, meetings and other billable activities.

His recent weekend marathon to attend national Easter Seals meetings represented a significant departure from Rossman's regular duties as the founding partner of Rossman Baumberger Reboso & Spier, a Miami trial law firm.

As a seasoned volunteer, Rossman has logged thousands of pro bono community service hours for Easter Seals and other nonprofit groups, where his experience and legal connections have yielded handsome dividends for the organizations he serves.

Elected to the national Easter Seals board in 2004, Rossman takes great pride in supporting an organization that assisted his daughter who has a developmental disability.

''Steve has been involved with us since he brought his daughter into the program [more than] 20 years ago,'' said Joan Bornstein, Easter Seals Miami-Dade president. ``He has served Easter Seals with a sincere dedication that I would call incredible.''

Such after-hours volunteer work is not uncommon in South Florida. From formal company-sponsored mentoring programs to individual community service hours, donations of time and sweat equity are popular with local businesses and their employees.

DONATIONS

Lawyers have donated about 1.5 million hours to pro bono cases over the past year, according to data from the Florida Bar Association.

Many volunteer initiatives are driven by the unique character of South Florida. For instance, to address the legal needs of poor Spanish-speaking residents, the Cuban American Bar Association is now expanding its pro bono project. Led by Marlene Quintana, a labor and employment lawyer at Akerman Senterfitt, CABA Pro Bono Project was launched in 1984 and in 1992 was named as a ''Point of Light'' by then-President George Bush.

The group's mission is to help expand the quality and quantity of free legal services available to poor Cuban-Americans and other Spanish-speaking community residents. CABA estimates that only 20 percent of the legal needs of that community are met.

Within the next few weeks, CABA Pro Bono will be moving its operations to Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors), a social service agency in Little Havana. As part of that move, it has hired new support staff and established several new goals, including doubling the caseload and increasing the volunteer hours provided by association members.

Local Florida Bar Association members are also active as volunteers. In Fort Lauderdale, Thomas Angelo -- managing shareholder of Angelo & Banta -- uses his expertise and contacts in real estate law to assist the Florida Museum of Science and Discovery.

Angelo, who serves as chairman of the museum on a pro bono basis, was recently alarmed when the museum faced a sharp increase (nearly 1,000 percent) in its windstorm insurance coverage. ''We had a huge crisis,'' he said.

Using his real estate contacts, Angelo recruited a new insurance broker and was able to secure a better deal on windstorm coverage for the organization.

Angelo has also recruited peers and friends from the legal sector to lend their financial support and expertise to the museum's capital campaign to fund an upcoming expansion plan. ''I really like getting my friends and business associates involved. Everybody wins, especially the children.'' he said.

HELPING CHILDREN

Other lawyers also devote their time to helping children. Katherine Ezell, an attorney at the Miami firm Podhurst Orseck, recently received the 2006 Tobias Simon Pro Bono Award, in part to recognize her work with children throughout the years. On a pro bono basis, Ezell has served as a legal advocate for neglected and abused children through Lawyers for Children America and other nonprofit programs.

She has put in more than 500 hours as the lawyer for a pair of preschool siblings. The oldest was four when the girl witnessed four murders and the torture of the victims. Through diligent work over a long period of time, Ezell was able to stop the nightmare by ending the parental rights of the girls' mother.

Ezell's pro bono efforts also have led to long-term ties with some of her clients. For example, 15 years ago Ezell was one of two court-appointed guardians for Oscar Gonzalez, whose parents were going through a difficult divorce. Both parents were partially disabled and Oscar suffers from Werdig-Hoffman, a degenerative muscle disease.

Over the years, Ezell has represented Oscar, now 24, and his mother, Lolly, in several cases, including disputes over his medical care and education. Ezell, for instance, was able to successfully arrange for Oscar to attend public school and got him the medical equipment he needs.

''It's really turned into a friendship,'' Ezell said.

In Rossman's case, the help he received from Bornstein and Easter Seals -- which included the placement of his then-six-year-old daughter in an Easter Seals school -- has since blossomed into a more-than-two-decades relationship with the organization. Bornstein first recruited Rossman to work on an Easter Seals fundraising campaign, then Rossman went on to fill several local and national roles within the organization.

''I just feel like I have been blessed and we have an obligation to give back to the community,'' Rossman said. ``There's more to life than making money.''