2016 Annual Florida Bar Convention: The Public Interest Law Division

In this Special Report, Florida Bar Public Interest Law Section incoming chair Sarah Sullivan talks with Legal Talk Network Executive Producer Laurence Colletti about her division, the joys of serving the public, and the challenges this type of law practice can bring. Sarah shares that her division is comprised mostly of legal aid practitioners who work for restricted or unrestricted legal aid programs, law professors, clinical professors, and managers of nonprofits. She also reveals that the kind of law that they practice consists mostly of housing law, family law, veteran work, disability work, nonprofit work, and that the common goal of serving the people unifies them all. Sarah provides insight into her work as a clinical professor at the Florida Coastal School of Law and presents a brief explanation of the services that her students provide through the experiential law firm run by the school. She closes the interview with a few reasons attorneys should join her division and some examples of the most rewarding cases she has experienced through her practice of law.

Sarah Sullivan is The Florida Bar Public Interest Law Section incoming chair. Professor Sullivan worked as a staff attorney from 1997-2001 and a senior staff Attorney with Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc. from 2005-July 2009. As a senior staff attorney, Professor Sullivan created a regional legal services project in Northeast Florida serving individuals with developmental disabilities. The project defends disabled individuals against denials, terminations or reductions of their essential services. In 2001, Professor Sullivan represented the South Carolina Department of Social Services in abuse and neglect cases before the Charleston County Family Court. While in Charleston, Professor Sullivan collaborated with the judiciary, pro bono lawyers, and social service agencies to create South Carolina’s first family recovery court for drug-dependent parents and their children. She currently leads the Disability and Public Benefits Clinic at Florida Coastal.

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