Much of our pro bono activities are run by our central Pro Bono Programs team, which is based in our Raleigh headquarters, but four of our field offices have staff members who manage pro bono in their offices’ service areas. Keep reading to learn more about them!
Sharon C. Council – Durham Office
Office service area: Caswell, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Person, Vance and Warren counties
Sharon has served as the pro bono coordinator in our Durham office for over 30 years. She has led numerous successful local projects to recruit attorneys, such as the Count-Me-In Pro Bono effort, where 50 cases were referred to the Durham Bar over four months in 2011. She has partnered with Womble Bond Dickinson, Moore & Van Allen, GSK and other large organizations to refer housing and expunction cases, and she has long-running pro bono partnerships with the law schools at Duke, NC Central and UNC. She personally coordinates the pro bono efforts of NC Central’s Elder Law Clinic, which provides wills and advanced directives to Durham seniors. In 2018, Sharon received the NC Equal Justice Alliance’s John Lea Award, which honors staff of legal aid groups who demonstrate dedication to their organization’s mission, make outstanding contributions, and show exceptional involvement in the low-income community.
Renee Gabriel-Morrison – Greensboro Office
Office service area: Davidson, Guilford, Montgomery, Randolph, Rockingham and Rowan counties
Soon after joining us in 1999 as a paralegal in our Greensboro office, Renee’s many talents earned her a promotion to pro bono coordinator, in which role she has become the face of pro bono in the office’s service area. An innovator, Renee has recruited criminal law attorneys to handle expunctions and has been active with Thrive GSO a city-sponsored reentry program in Greensboro. She has gained enough expunction expertise to allow her to draft petitions for our staff and volunteer attorneys. Since its inception, she has coordinated the office’s award-winning Randolph County domestic violence program, which involves a rotating group of four attorneys who represent domestic violence survivors in court. Renee brings experience and excellence to her job and has helped maintain relationships with local bars that have long-lasting positive effects for our clients.
Claudette Harvey – Gastonia Office
Office service area: Cleveland, Gaston and Lincoln counties
Claudette wears many caps in the Gastonia office: receptionist, paralegal, office manager and all-around support person. On top of all that, she manages to find time to serve as the office’s pro bono coordinator! Claudette has a heart of gold and goes above and beyond to find pro bono volunteers for clients. She’s helped facilitate representation for clients who need wills, estate work, expungements and various consumer matters. Perhaps her most impressive work is with a small but mighty group of volunteer attorneys who tackle cases in one of our most challenging practice areas: child custody. Thanks to Claudette’s efforts over the years, numerous adult survivors of domestic violence, as well as children who have lived through abuse and neglect, have now found a sense of safety and stability in their lives.
Teresa Poor – Smoky Mountain Offices
Office service area: Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties, and the Territory of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
Teresa Poor has been Pro Bono coordinator at Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Smoky Mountain Offices for more than a decade. In addition to numerous other duties with the office, she has cultivated relationships with the private bar and facilitated pro bono or affordable representation in numerous cases. Teresa has been particularly effective in referrals of social security and bankruptcy matters but has done an excellent job in other areas as well. In one notable recent example, Teresa arranged for pro bono divorce and equitable distribution representation for a survivor who had been shot multiple times at her workplace by her abuser. Teresa has also worked tirelessly in making sure clinics with the UNC Law pro bono program run smoothly.