Susan E.Mack, Adams and Reese LLP
Susan E.Mack has practiced law for 37 years as a senior corporate counsel and general counsel in the area of insurance and reinsurance transactions. Currently partner and pro bono coordinator at the firm Adams and Reese, Mack has demonstrated a strong commitment to pro bono service.
“I assumed pro bono directorship at the firm about a year after I started, and I feel that pro bono work is a commitment that we as members of the Bar have,” Mack said. “It is a pleasure and privilege to afford pro bono services to the community.”
Mack also practices in the area of cyber liability and data privacy. As an arbitrator and chair of arbitration accounts, she was the only female founder of ARIAS-US, a large international arbitration society dedicated to insurance and reinsurance disputes.
But her pro bono assignments have covered a range of legal issues such as name changes, green card retention for immigrants, veterans’ services, and homestead exemptions.
“Last year I represented a gentleman who, due to lack of funds, couldn’t get his mother’s estate probated and had not retained the homestead exemption on the house, and it was getting to be a crushing financial obligation,” she said. “I was able to get the will of his long-deceased mother admitted to probate and restored the homestead exemption to his house, which makes his life easier on a day-to-day basis.”
Through Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Mack, and her colleagues have also participated in pro bono legal services clinics, many of which benefit veterans.
“There is a particular focus here in the firm in helping folks that either are currently in the U.S. military or who have served,” she said. “We try to do our part because some of those populations are very underserved.”
Mack’s assistance has had a life-changing impact on her clients.
“You’ve gotten someone the status to remain in the United States, the status to work here, you helped a person make a start on a new life with a new name, or kept a person from having crushing financial debt,” Mack said. “It’s wonderful because most of these pro bono assignments do result in life-changing, positive events for the individual.”
Although unable to provide monetary compensation, Mack’s pro bono clients have expressed deep gratitude for her services.
“There are few people more grateful than folks who you have helped throughout a pro bono assignment,” she said.
