BRBA members honored during LSBA pro bono awards ceremony in May

The Louisiana State Bar Association’s 2014 Pro Bono & Children’s Awards were presented at a pro bono reception held May 20, 2014. Three Baton Rouge Bar Association members were selected as recipients of the Pro Bono Public Award, and a former intern with the BRBA was selected to receive the Law Student Pro Bono Award.


Sherrye Palmer
A solo practitioner practicing bankruptcy law, Sherrye Palmer has an office in Saint Amant, La., and practices in Baton Rouge as well. She donated 63 hours of pro bono service through the Baton Rouge Bar Foundation in 2013, including extensive client representation and advice or counseling at the BRBF outreach legal clinics along with case referrals. Palmer was honored with an LSBA Pro Bono Publico Award May 20, 2014.

Prior to attending law school, she worked as a registered nurse, a small business owner, a business administrator and a civil servant. Palmer graduated from Southern University Law Center in May 2010 and was admitted to the bar in May 2011. Palmer said that she believes that it is her duty as a lawyer, and in her previous career as a nurse, to help those most in need in her community. She has supported the BRBF pro bono panel in its goal to expand services to surrounding parishes by volunteering in both the parishes of East Baton Rouge and Livingston.

Palmer maintains her nursing license and donates time helping friends and family by administering medications and providing counseling relative to medical issues. Her dedication to pro bono service is a natural extension of her passion for service. "It is this ‘big picture’ perspective that I try to provide my clients. The law is simply one of the tools we can use to bring us closer to the lives we want to live," Palmer said.

Booker T. Carmichael
Founder and partner of The Carmichael Firm, LLC, Booker T. Carmichael received a 2014 LSBA Pro Bono Publico Award May 20, 2014. He practices bankruptcy law exclusively.

He established the Bankruptcy Law Clinic at Southern University Law Center and is responsible for the design and execution of the transition from a classroom theory-oriented program to a student attorney/client relationship focused law clinic. The Pro Bono Bankruptcy Clinic provides services to low-income clients while simultaneously giving hands-on experience to student attorneys.

He serves as adjunct professor of law at SULC and has taught at Grambling State University as an adjunct faculty member. Carmichael donated 136 hours in 2013 to the direct representation of pro bono clients in bankruptcy cases through his law firm and through oversight and supervision of pro bono cases handled by the student attorneys of the SULC Bankruptcy Law Clinic.

Michael D. Ferachi
A past president of the BRBA, Michael D. Ferachi practices consumer litigation with McGlinchey Stafford and is the editor of the CAFA Law Blog (www.cafalawblog.com). He received a 2014 LSBA Pro Bono Publico Award. Not only did he dedicated 51 hours of pro bono service to the Pro Bono Project representing pro bono clients, but Ferachi has been instrumental in promoting a culture of pro bono at his firm. He helped draft McGlinchey Stafford’s pro bono policy, which encouraged attorneys to handle such cases and allowed them to use the hours they worked on pro bono matters to be credited toward their firm’s internal budgets. As a result, many of the firm’s associates became regular volunteers for Pro Bono Project programs – Thirst for Justice, Ask-A-Lawyer and Self Help Resource Center – and many accept cases for individual representation on a regular basis.

Brittany J. McKeel
Brittany Jaleesa McKeel, a second-year student attending Southern University Law Center, was honored with the 2014 LSBA Law Student Pro Bono Award May 20, 2014. McKeel served as an intern with the BRBF Pro Bono Project and volunteered with the Foundation’s legal clinics, Thirst for Justice and the Self Help Resource Center at Family Court of East Baton Rouge. In 2013, she helped to start a Louisiana Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild at Southern University Law Center. McKeel serves as its treasurer. As a new chapter, the group is developing new programs relating to prisoner’s rights, women’s activism, and advocacy for the elderly. McKeel expected to complete law school in May 2015. She completed her bachelor’s degree in political science in May 2011 from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.