This edition of Partner Spotlights highlights the importance of making a difference in our communities. Personally, I have enjoyed serving as the Founder and Chair of the Blank Rome Adopt-A-Center Program (which was formerly the Phillips Lerner Adopt-A-Center Program) for more than two decades. I also have the pleasure of serving on the Board of Directors, as Board Secretary, and Executive Committee of Public Counsel, the nation’s largest provider of pro bono legal services, utilizing an innovative legal model to promote justice, hope, and opportunity in lower-income and communities of color in Los Angeles and across the nation. If you would like to make a donation to Public Counsel, that would be greatly appreciated: justgiving.com/fundraising/stacy-d-phillips.

I also encourage each of you to find ways in 2022 to help those in need in your communities, whether it be through donating to a worthy cause, volunteering your time, raising awareness of a local need, or even making a simple gesture of kindness for a neighbor. Please enjoy learning about how my colleagues Ashley Silberfeld and Morgan Fraser Mouchette have worked this past year to make an impact in their communities.

Ashley Silberfeld, Los Angeles

Ashley Silberfeld chose to pursue her career in family law because she wanted to help families through difficult life events. That desire to give back recently led to her being elected to the Board of Directors of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, a prominent pro bono organization in Los Angeles. While Ashley’s practice at Blank Rome focuses on prenuptial agreements, divorces, and custody matters, she is honored and looks forward to assisting Bet Tzedek clients with other family-related legal issues, such as elder abuse, keeping siblings together in guardianship/kinship cases, and caregiver assistance disputes.

Morgan Fraser Mouchette, New York

Morgan Fraser Mouchette, who serves as co-chair of our BR United affinity group and as an officer and longtime board member of the New York Women’s Bar Association, also serves in leadership positions in the Black BigLaw Pipeline and My People’s Keeper. She is passionate about helping personal and professional development groups focused on the increased diversification of the legal profession through mentorship and community building so that people of all backgrounds can bring their whole selves to work and operate in an atmosphere where everyone can be successful. In October, she spoke at an event hosted by the Legal Marketing Association’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion’s Special Interest Group, sharing her perspective on ways in-house legal marketing and business development employees can help make their respective workplaces more open to diversity and inclusion and incorporate diversity and inclusion programs at firms of all sizes.