The Federal Bar Association is pleased to participate in the SOLACE program on a national scale with the help of its local FBA Chapters. SOLACE stands for “Support of Lawyers/Legal Personnel—All Concern Encouraged.” SOLACE provides a way for the FBA legal community to reach out in small, but meaningful and compassionate ways, to FBA members and those related to them in the legal community who experience a death, or some catastrophic event, illness, sickness, injury, or other personal crisis.
Judge Jay Zainey and Mark Surprenant, in connection with the Louisiana State Bar Association, originally developed the SOLACE program, and in 2016 FBA President Judge Michael Newman made the SOLACE program one of his national priorities for the FBA.
The SOLACE program has helped numerous individuals by handling a wide variety of requests. Examples of past requests and responsive help include securing a medical evacuation airlift from a foreign country, donating furniture to a solo practitioner whose office was consumed by a fire, contributing frequent flyer miles or hotel points for families who cannot afford the travel costs associated with medical treatment, volunteering to care for the dog of an individual who was away from home while receiving cancer treatment, providing a family with meals, lodging, assistance with grocery shopping or child care, or providing non-legal information—whatever the situation may warrant. SOLACE does not, however, handle requests for money. For more information on the initiative’s good work, please follow the links here and here.
The FBA’s SOLACE initiative is open to all FBA members and those related to them within the legal community— judges, lawyers, court personnel, paralegals, legal secretaries and their families—not just lawyers. If you would like to submit a SOLACE request for help, please email solace@fedbar.org and include SOLACE and a key word (i.e., storm name) in the subject line: provide your name, name of requestor of assistance (if different), description of the requested assistance, and contact information. No request is too big or too small.
Please note that all SOLACE requests are handled as discreetly as possible. In normal circumstances, the only parties who will know the identity of a person requesting help are the SOLACE coordinators and the individuals offering help. Likewise, if you are offering to help meet a request, the only parties who will know your identity are the SOLACE coordinators and the individual seeking help.
The FBA SOLACE initiative is directed at the national level by the FBA National SOLACE Committee. If you have further questions about FBA SOLACE, please contact solace@fedbar.org.
