The Caribbean Bar Association presented the award at their 27th Annual Scholarship and Awards Gala, which took place October 14 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. The Center for Ethics and Public Services's Fredman Family Foundation Practitioner-in-Residence and Lecturer Alex Rundlet and Program Coordinator Carter Cooper accepted the award with Fellows Brandi Griffin, Mandel Fellow, Legal Profession Program; Omarley Spence, William M. Hoeveler Fellow, Legal Profession Program; Jordan Brooks, Steven Chaykin Fellow, Health Equity Project; Taimaisú Ferrer Sin, Peter Palmero Fellow, Housing & Community Equity Project; Janeal Fordham, David P. Catsman Fellow, Legal Profession Program; and Gabrielle A.C. Thomas, Soia Mentschikoff and Public Interest Scholar.
The gala is the primary fundraiser for CBA's scholarship program, which funds paid judicial and public interest legal internships for law students in South Florida. The theme for this year's gala, "Amplify: Get Up, Stand Up, Speak Up," highlighted the CBA's legal initiatives throughout the past year, recognizing scholarship recipients and celebrating individuals and organizations who partnered within and served communities on local, national, and international levels to support the Caribbean American community.
"I am so pleased to accept CBA's Public Service Award on behalf of my colleagues at CEPS," said Rundlet. "It is our hope these efforts will transform the housing and redevelopment landscape in South Florida, with the ultimate beneficiaries being some of our most vulnerable Black and historically redlined communities."
Founded almost 30 years ago, the Center for Ethics and Public Service is a law school-housed ethics education, experiential skills training, and community engagement program devoted to the values of ethical judgment, professional responsibility, and public service in law and society. Its mission is to educate law students to serve their communities as citizen lawyers.
The center operates three programs: the Community Equity Lab, the Black Church Program, and the Legal Profession Program. As referenced in the event program, "we explored during a program hosted by the CBA earlier this year, our ongoing Community Equity Lab project, in which fellows and interns continued to engage in case-, ordinance-, statutory-, and regulatory-based research, information-gathering, and relationship-building with neighborhood groups on the racially disparate impact and segregative effect of land use and zoning policies in the City of Miami. The work has established the factual and legal foundation for a fair housing investigation and enforcement action by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The objective of the enforcement action is to reshape the City's zoning, future land use, demolition, and eviction practices that have devastated, for example, the Coconut Grove Village West community."
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