In firm news, Ken Levinson is partnering with the American Association for Justice to volunteer in its Voter Protection Action Committee.
AAJ is an organization working to bring advocacy, education, and a community mindset to trial lawyers working toward justice, and promotes fairness for injured victims while safeguarding their rights–especially their right to a trial by jury.
Within the Voter Protection Action Committee, AAJ works with state and national organizations to find law students, paralegals, and lawyers who can act as poll monitors, poll workers, call center volunteers, and more in order to protect Americans’ right to vote.
“I’m involved in the Voter Protection Action Committee in order to make sure that our democracy stays strong and that people get out and vote,” said Levinson. “We believe that our jobs lawyers goes beyond just helping clients.”
Levinson has been working throughout the month of October to help get people registered to vote in time for the election on November 3rd.
“Working with clients is a big part of [our job], but it’s also about helping the community, our system of laws, and our government and democracy,” Levinson explained. “Lawyers need to do their part. And this is one of the things we [at the firm] do.”
AAJ’s Voter Protection Action Committee was officially established in 2010, and throughout 2020, nearly 1,200 trial lawyers have volunteered to boost and protect voters’ rights. During 2018’s voting cycle, the trial lawyer community helped to protect votes in 29 different states.
To do their part in protecting our democracy, trial lawyers, through the VPAC, have volunteered as poll workers, poll monitors, and call center volunteers; they have worked on-call to travel to battleground states when needed; they’ve volunteered to check voters’ registrations and have helped register people to vote across the country; they’ve helped voters request absentee and mail-in ballots; and they’ve helped review state-specific voter information to make the process as easy as possible.
“People rely on lawyers to protect their rights every day, their right to trial by jury, and the right to bring a lawsuit when they are injured,” said Jackalyn A. Olinger Rochelle, a VPAC volunteer out of St. Louis, Missouri. “The right to vote is no different. We have a duty and a fundamental obligation to protect the right to vote.”
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