FFLA, in June at its Annual Award Ceremony and Breakfast, awarded Rosemary Armstrong, Esq., co-founder and Director Emerita of Crossroads For Florida Kids, the 2026 Jane Elizabeth Curran Distinguished Service Award for her decades of unwavering pro bono service, her steadfast advocacy for vulnerable children and families, and her leadership in
expanding access to justice across the state of Florida.
The Jane Elizabeth Curran Distinguished Service Award recognizes an individual who, over his or her career, has achieved meaningful, effective and lasting increases in access to civil justice for the poor in Florida.
After earning her law degree from Columbia Law School, she began volunteering as a pro bono lawyer for Bay Area Legal Services in Tampa. She helped create a Family Law Mentor Project to recruit pro bono attorneys and mentors for family law cases, a model later replicated by other pro bono programs. She served on BALS’ board of directors for 22 years, including three terms as president, and chaired the 13th Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee.
In 2012, she received The Florida Bar’s Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award, the highest honor the Bar bestows for pro bono service. That same year, she co-founded Crossroads For Florida Kids, a pro bono organization in Hillsborough County devoted entirely to representing children in dependency, delinquency, criminal and related matters.
“Ms. Armstrong is a talented, passionate attorney who has devoted her career to advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable of our citizens, and particularly on behalf of
children,” wrote Katherine Earle Yanes of Kynes Markman & Felman in her letter supporting Armstrong’s nomination. “She has achieved professional excellence and has used her time and talents to represent some of those in our society most in need of pro bono assistance: needy children.”
Over the next decade, Armstrong served as Crossroads’ full-time, unpaid executive director, building a comprehensive, trauma-informed model of representation that has become a blueprint for pro bono children’s advocacy in Florida. Under her leadership, more than 280 volunteer attorneys were recruited and trained, collectively contributing more than 55,000 pro bono hours to over 1,700 children. She has personally represented more than 150 children, many of whom had significant mental and physical health needs and complex challenges.
“There was no other attorney fighting harder for the rights of disadvantaged children in our community than Rosemary Armstrong,” wrote Lisa Kilbride of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in a letter of support. “Rosemary’s commitment and professionalism in all aspects of her work is literally second to none.”
