CLP has a New Home!!

Since October 2001, our offices have been located in the 501 Building (due south of the courthouse) in downtown St. Petersburg. We occupied two suites on the 5th floor directly across from one another. Both suites combined were a little over 1,600 square feet. At that time, this space was more than adequate to accommodate our needs, because we only had a staff of 3, including the Executive Director, and we had three nicely sized empty offices in one of the suites along with a common area, which we used to conduct our onsite legal advice clinics. Our volunteer attorneys were able to meet with our clients in these individual offices.

Since that time, our staff has more than doubled, and our advice clinics have become busier, given the growing numbers of people facing difficult economic times. This growing need has necessitated the need for more volunteer attorneys to staff our clinics, more volunteer attorneys in training, and more law students and paralegal students to help out with conducting pre-interviews of clients. As a consequence of this growth, our original office space was quickly making for an untenable working environment. It had gotten so bad that on certain days of the week, I had as many as three employees who had to work from home due to the lack of space. On Wednesday mornings, which is when we have our Courthouse Legal Assistance Walk-in Clinic (which starts at 9:00 a.m.), we had people lined up in the hallways beginning at 8:00 a.m. It had gotten so bad that Pinellas County Lease Management was kind enough to provide a line of chairs near the elevator for some of these early risers to sit and wait until our doors opened. Others would go downstairs to Tangier’s Deli for coffee. The scene inside of the “administrative” suite of our offices on Wednesdays consisted of me inside of my closet sized office with the door closed trying to frantically work while law students were conducting pre-interviews within all available common areas that we could section off, including right outside of my office. I am confident in speaking on behalf of all staff at CLP when I say that finding a quiet place to concentrate and work in our old space had become an olympic sport!

Thankfully, around last year this time, our board of trustees, led by Linda Perrigoue recognized our tremendous need for more space and got to work on this project. For those of you who do not know, CLP has occupied its space in the 501 Building virtually free of charge (i.e., for $1.00 per year) thanks to the benevolence of the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners and the Pinellas County Lease Management Department. When we approached the County about the need for more space, naturally we understood that, given the state of county revenues nationwide, we would not be getting quite the same deal. As a consequence, for the first time in CLP’s history, we were faced with the prospect of having to acquire the funding to enable us to afford and to sustain what is for most non-profits (and for most companies for that matter) the single most costly and fixed non-personnel related expense, i.e., rent.

In the end, everything came together and has worked out fabulously!! The County gave us an incredible deal on the increased space, and we secured additional funding through the Florida Bar Foundation’s Legal Assistance to the Poor Grant Program enabling us to pay the rent. So, on July 1st, we moved to our new home just on the other side of the elevator from where we were, but the difference is like night and day!!

We now occupy Suite 519 in the 501 Building, which has a total square footage of over 2,500. We have a total of seven internal offices, a conference room, a storage room, a break room, and two waiting/reception areas. We now have plenty of room to conduct our advice clinics, and we can comfortably accommodate as many as four (4) volunteer attorneys for each clinic, if needed, as well as the same number of law students and/or paralegals to do pre-interviews. And, most importantly, we have room for all of our staff to work comfortably every day, provided, of course, we don’t continue to grow!!

All of the furniture for our new space (consisting of multiple executive desks, over 60 chairs of various kinds, file cabinets, and coffee tables) was donated absolutely free of charge by Synovus Bank. This incredibly generous gift was procured by our Board president, Linda Perrigoue, who works for Synovus. We also would like to thank board member, Murray Silverstein, for donating a table and chairs for our conference room, former board member, Kelly Feeley, for donating a full-sized refrigerator for our break room, and all other members of our board for their help and support. By the time you read this article, our entire office will probably be completely furnished down to the artwork on our walls through the tenacity and generosity of our board of trustees.

Already, this move has been a tremendous morale booster for our staff and has fostered an increased sense of dignity felt by our clients seeking our services. Soon, we will be having an Open House to celebrate this wonderful accomplishment, so stay tuned! In the meantime, please feel free to drop by anytime to say, “hello!” The only contact information for us that has changed is our suite number! We are now located at:

501 First Avenue North, Suite 519
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
(727) 582 – 7480
Email: clp@lawprogram.org
Website: www.lawprogram.org