In celebration of Black History Month, Shutts & Bowen’s Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach offices banded together for three events designed to empower aspiring young minority professionals.
On Feb. 25, Shutts & Bowen was a sponsor of two events at the Urban League of Broward County: the dedication of the Pathway to Empowerment as well as a community welcome reception for Jon M. Garon, dean of the Shepard Broad Law Center at Nova Southeastern University.
Earlier in February, Shutts & Bowen helped sponsor the F. Malcolm Cunningham Bar Association’s William Holland luncheon in West Palm Beach, keynoted by Nontombi Naomi Tutu, human rights activist and daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nomalizo Leah Tutu.
The Pathway links the Urban League’s state-of-the-art Community Empowerment Center at 560 NW 27th Ave. with the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center at 2650 Sistrunk Blvd. The Pathway was the joint vision of Eugene Pettis, the first African-American President of The Florida Bar, and his wife Sheila Pettis, who is an Urban League board member, with Fort Lauderdale Partner Sidney Calloway.
Fellow sponsors of the Broward events included the T.J. Reddick Bar Association, and the Gwen S. Cherry Black Female Lawyers Bar Association, and the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship at Nova Southeastern University.
Mr. Calloway welcomed Dean Garon in unveiling Nova’s Global Law Leadership Initiative, an elective immersion curriculum beginning with the August 2015 entering class designed to develop the technological, financial, and global competencies essential to modern law practice, incorporating an international perspective and promoting minority empowerment.
“This is important for professional development of Florida’s young law students and lawyers as well as for the growth of the community,” said Calloway, Co-Chair of the firm’s Government Law Practice Group, longtime legal and civic leader, and powerful mentor to aspiring lawyers for more than two decades. Mr. Calloway is former President of the T.J. Reddick Bar Association and former Chair of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce and current member of the 17th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission.
Said Miami partner Rene Gonzalez-Llorens, chair of Shutts & Bowen’s diversity committee and a member of the Miami-Dade County Commission on Human Rights: “Our firm cultivates a culture of excellence in all that we do, and that is only enhanced when our professionals mirror the increasing diversity of the marketplace. Nova’s program will further that end, and we are proud to be of service to them.”
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