The Emory University School of Law Public Interest Committee
awarded AVLF Deputy Director Tamara Caldas with the 2013 Unsung Devotion to
Those Most in Need Award on February 5. Also that evening, Jeffrey Bramlett
received the Outstanding Leadership in the Public
Interest. Award, and Robbie Dokson was awarded the Lifetime Commitment
to Public Service Award.
AVLF was very much in evidence throughout the evening. Obviously,
the Foundation is very proud of the recognition of Tamara and her selfless and
amazing work for the clients, the legal community and the Court systems of
metropolitan Atlanta. As well, Robbie Dokson was a founder of AVLF; Jeff
Bramlett worked closely with the Foundation’s One Child One Lawyer Program when
resolving the claims of the groundbreaking Kenny
A. litigation; Steve Gottlieb, who introduced Robbie that evening is a
close partner of AVLF’s from his position as the Director of the Atlanta Legal
Aid Society; Theresa Roseborough, who introduced Jeff that evening is a former
AVLF Guardian ad litem; Dan Bloom, the evening’s MC, is a former Deputy
Director of AVLF; and Marty Ellin, AVLF’s executive Director, had the pleasure
of introducing Tamara to the full house at Emory Law School.
Marty’s comments that evening included the following:
Tamara Serwer Caldas is a great lawyer. And
she would never tell you that, but tonight she doesn’t have to, in part because
the people who work with her are thrilled to have the chance to do so. I had
the pleasure of contacting a range of Tamara’s current and former colleagues,
and wish I could share all of what they said. Put together, it is the portrait
of a woman who lives by this direction: If
one does not consider the circumstance of fellow human beings then the whole
purpose of the law is lost.
You could see Tamara’s career and all that she
would accomplish, coming from miles away. After finishing at Princeton, where
she received awards for the best senior thesis in American literature AND
achievement in dance, Tamara spent time with the New York Lawyers for the
Public Interest before simultaneously securing a law degree and Masters of
Public Affairs from some school in Austin, Texas.
She then clerked in the Sixth Circuit- Judge
Martha Daughtery told me that “Tamara
was a superb law clerk and a joy to have in chambers. We never had a
doubt that she was headed into public-interest law and into lifelong public
service. We knew she would shine at work closest to her heart. And she has.”
From there she went to the Southern Center for
Human Rights where she just made life miserable for a number of jailers and a
political subdivision or two that doubted that this little pixie of a lawyer
could challenge men and systems that had been in place since… since… well, no
one could remember it being otherwise.
The Southern Center’s Kung Li related this- “Typical of Tamara was the second
preliminary injunction hearing for the Tutwiler case, when she was 2½ months
pregnant w/ Shoshana and pretending like she wasn’t– we pulled into the federal
district court parking lot, she got out, threw up, dusted herself off, and
carried on.” And carried on she did- through the Tutwiler case, Tamara
represented over 1,000 women prisoners, and Mica Doctoroff, an investigator on
the case, said “This was a case that
Tamara and others had fiercely litigated for years - so fiercely and so
successfully, in fact, that the State of Alabama and the Department of
Corrections never quite recovered from what hit them.”
Sara Totonchi, the current Executive Director
of the SCHR told me this is what she learned from TSC- “if you’re fighting for something for your client, you might as well get
comfortable because you’re just not leaving the room until opposing counsel
gives in.”
And then, after work promoting reproductive
rights for birth parents and adoptive parents, fortunately for us, and for the
effort to promote equal access to justice for the poor of our community, she
came to AVLF. After being a Staff Attorney and our Managing Attorney, Tamara
quickly became our Deputy Director. …From the day she began we have been a
significantly better organization for her presence and her enormous talent. She
is at once a very broad and very deep thinker about how to address the unmet
civil legal needs of the poor, and unusually for a big picture person she is
also extremely detail oriented.
Tamara is the perfect example of what can be
accomplished when no one is invested in who gets the credit. She has so often
been a force for positive change for which there has been no publicity. Among
the most meaningful law-related endeavors: without fanfare, Tamara provided the
impetus for the establishment of the Housing Advocacy Resource Center and the
Fulton County Courthouse’s Self-Help Center. And, in recognition for her
insistence on helping the justice system to evolve, she made many fans of those
with whom she worked.
State Court Administrator/Chief Clerk Cicely
Barber related this to me: “I can always count on Tamara to tell me the truth
and be helpful. I am very grateful for her wisdom, guidance, and most
importantly her friendship.” Judge Louis
Levenson told me this about Tamara: “She has been an involved member of the
Court family for years and always with a constant interest in contributing
ideas for improving the quality of the justice and fairness that is delivered
to all who we serve. She is a resource that everyone resects for her
knowledge of the law and for her experience about the legal procedures utilized
in the Court.”
Absent publicity for her work, she worked with
Michael Lucas and his team to revise the 40 year old Saturday Lawyer program,
making it again the Foundation’s and the community’s primary vehicle for the
delivery of housing, consumer and wage claim-related pro bono legal service.
She has interacted extensively with law students and interns, working last
Legislative session with Emory students of Frank Alexander seeking to extend
the Protecting Tenants in Foreclosure Act. Tamara is coordinating the effort to
promote foreclosure Mediation in the federal court; and she is leading the
Foundation’s Judicial Bypass work, even as she teams with the AVLF Housing and
Consumer Law team to address issues of economic integrity and with the AVLF DV
Project team to address equally critical matters of violence prevention.
On top of all of this, she continues to
demonstrate - in the trenches - the impressive advocacy and the compassion for
people on which she has built her career, finding time to remain “hands on”
with eviction and housing condition cases, to directly advise clients, and to
give public “know your rights” presentations to communities in need…
And on
it goes, competently, creatively- unrelentingly- and without much notice. I am
delighted that the EPIC Committee was inspired by Tamara’s selfless approach,
and although praise for the excellence of the body of Tamara’s work is barely
sung, and although she would not have us broadcast, it merits a full chorus, so
I am proud to ask TSC to come forward to accept the EPIC’s 2013 Unsung Devotion to Those Most in Need award.
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