Attorney James C. Rinaman, Jr., former president of The Florida Bar and a partner in the Jacksonville law firm of Marks, Gray, Conray & Gibbs, P.A., and Sr. Catherine Gorman, executive director of the Apopka-based Office for Farmworker Ministry, were named recipients of The Florida Bar Foundation Medal of Honor for 1988. The award is presented annually by the Bar Foundation to a lawyer, and a non lawyer, or lawyer not actively engaged in the practice of law, for outstanding contributions to the administration of justice in Florida. The award is the highest honor bestowed upon a lawyer or layperson by the legal profession in Florida. The awards will be presented at the Foundation’s annual dinner on June 16, at Marriott’s Orlando World Center during The Florida Bar Annual Convention.
Rinaman, who was president of The Florida Bar in 1981-82 and also served as a director of the Bar Foundation, is being recognized for his dedication to the public service activities of the organized Bar. Nominated by the Jacksonville Bar Association to receive the award, Jacksonville Bar Association President S. Grier Wells said of Rinaman, “His involvement in civic activities and tireless efforts over the years to promote the administration of justice has earned The Florida Bar Foundation’s Medal of Honor award.”
Among the variety of legal posts Rinaman has held during his 28 years of law practice are seven years as a member of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates, president in 1987 of Lawyers for Civil Justice, Inc. and a founding director of Florida Lawyers Assistance, Inc., a program initiated by The Florida Bar to provide substance abuse counseling and treatment for lawyers.
As president of The Florida Bar, Rinaman was particularly instrumental in focusing attention on the need for improved legal services to Florida’s indigent residents and increased pro bono legal services for the poor by private attorneys. In 1985 at the request of The Florida Bar, Rinaman headed up the Volunteer Lawyers’ Resource Center, housed at Florida State University College of Law. Rinaman spent almost an entire year recruiting prominent Florida law firms to represent indigent death-row inmates in clemency proceedings, and in post-conviction appeals in the federal courts. The Resource Center was established by The Florida Bar at the urging of the Federal/State Judicial Council to provide a workable mechanism to assure that the constitutional rights of individuals sentenced to death be carefully reviewed before the state imposes its ultimate penalty for a crime. The Resource Center, partially funded by the Bar Foundation, was succeeded by the state-funded Office of Capitol Collateral Representative.
The 1988 award for a non-lawyer to Sister Catherine Gorman follows her nomination by Jerri Ann Blair and George E. Carr, members of the Board of Governors of the Young Lawyers Division of The Florida Bar. Gorman began the Farmworker Ministry office in 1971 with funding from the Catholic Diocese of Orlando. A member of the Order of Sisters of Notre Dame, Gorman lives in the community she serves, and has been instrumental in developing a variety of projects aimed at improving health care, housing, employment and advocating for the legal rights of migrant farmworkers.
While Gorman works daily in her Apopka office serving farmworkers, she has been successful in marshalling volunteer support and resources to serve Central Florida farmworkers from business, various state and private agencies, churches and community organizations. Among the organizations established by Sister Gorman and her co-workers are the West Orange Farmworker Health Organization, which provides comprehensive primary care to more than 18,000 poor people each year, the Justice and Peace Office, which improves housing conditions for farmworkers, Homes-in-Partnership, Inc., a nonprofit self-help housing developer in Apopka, and a legal aid program funded in part by the Bar Foundation with funds from the IOTA program.
Sister Gorman’s nomination to receive the award cited as one of her chief accomplishments her success in providing others with the means to eventually take responsibility for each project and to avoid any dependency upon charity or government benefits.
Past recipients of the Medal of Honor award include Florida State University College of Law Dean Talbot D’Alemberte, former governor Reuben Askew, former Florida Supreme Court Justice Arthur England and Saint Petersburg Times chief editorial writer Martin Dyckman. The Orlando-based Bar Foundation administers Florida’s Interest on Trust Accounts (IOTA) program. The IOTA program awards annual grants of over $3,000,000 for legal aid for the poor, projects to improve the administration of justice in Florida, and financial aid for students at Florida law schools engaged in public service activities.
