COLUMBUS, OHIO – The Honorable Mary Jane Trapp, Judge of the Ohio 11th District Court of Appeals (Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Portage and Trumbull counties), is today’s recipient of the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation’s 2011 Presidential Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Delivery of Pro Bono Legal Service. The award is being presented to Judge Trapp during the Council of Delegates and General Assembly Meeting of the Ohio State Bar Association’s 2011 Annual Convention, held this year in Columbus.
Judge Trapp is being recognized for her leadership in the Ohio State Bar Association’s Judicially-Led Appellate District Pro Bono Project, in which she facilitated creation of foreclosure mediation programs in each of the counties of the 11th Appellate District. She encouraged attorneys to provide pro bono legal representation to low income homeowners in foreclosure mediation cases, and assisted the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland with training for those attorneys.
The Presidential Award is presented annually to individuals, law firms or organizations that have made outstanding contributions to improving access to legal representation through pro bono or volunteer service to low income Ohioans.
“This year’s Presidential Award winner is a tenacious and dedicated leader who inspires pro bono service by attorneys,” said H. Ritchey Hollenbaugh, a partner in the Columbus law firm of Carlile, Patchen & Murphy LLP and the Foundation’s board president.
Judge Trapp was elected to the 11th District Court of Appeals in 2006 after 25 years in the private practice of law in northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania. She is a past president of the Ohio State Bar Association and currently serves on the Ohio Supreme Court’s Commission on the Rules of Practice and Procedure and the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates. In 2010 she ran unsuccessfully for the Ohio Supreme Court.
The Ohio General Assembly created OLAF in 1994 to fund and to enhance civil legal aid for low income Ohioans. OLAF uses no general revenue funds, but rather, utilizes dollars earned from the interest on lawyers trust accounts, the interest on real estate trust accounts funds, and a civil filing fee surcharge to ensure that low income veterans, children and victims of domestic violence, and
people facing foreclosure have access to legal information, advice and representation.