Let’s face it; lawyers don’t always have the best reputation. After learning about the work that attorneys in Suffolk County do, you’ll wonder why!

Theresa Mari joined us for our 20th episode of Lenard Team Connections. As a Family Law Lawyer and the head of the Suffolk County Bar Association Charitable Foundation, she’s giving back to the community in more ways than you can imagine. Tune in to learn how she is helping children, families, and veterans. 

Can you share more about the work you do?

I'm a family law lawyer. I handle mostly divorce cases, and I represent children. So most of what I do is represent children whether it be in neglect and abuse cases, or in cases where parents are fighting over their custody issues. I've been working as an attorney for about 30 years. I also mediate, which in today's world is pretty important because, you know, with what's going on with this virus, and the fact that people can mediate, maybe save some money, some aggravation in trying to resolve their cases. The court has started a mediation project as well so that people can resolve some of their issues without having to spend so much money on attorneys.

What is the Suffolk County Bar Association Charitable Foundation?

This foundation has been around for many years. It's a group of volunteer attorneys. There's a base foundation, and we raise money by having different events. What we do with the money is we mostly give it to either children's causes, for example, we donate bears to the children's centers at the court system so that when kids come in, they don't feel so overwhelmed and we have something to give them. We give scholarships, we've donated money to help kids to prepare for the SATs. 

We also give money to caregivers and guardians. For example, when a grandparent comes along and now has custody of a child and doesn't have a crib. So we do we buy all kinds of things for the courthouse for children. 

We've also done a lot with veterans causes and Adult Protective Services, where we go out and donate, whether it be food, whether it be personal items. So we've been doing this for a while. 

How has the foundation shifted since the pandemic?

What we've done this year is we've redirected our funds. When the COVID virus hit, we redirected our funds by donating a lot of money to the frontline workers in the hospitals. So we've donated at this point in meals, about $16,000 in meals by getting them to the various hospitals on Long Island. We've gotten donations to the Veterans Hospital. We were able to donate to a few of the food pantries, we did three food pantries. We also did get some donations to Smithtown Children’s Foundation. 

Also, there's a local group of librarians on Long Island, who got together and got 3d printers from school districts and other libraries. They've been using the 3d printers to make shields and other items. So we were able to pay some of their invoices for the equipment they needed. Through all that, we also tried to make sure we varied up the local restaurants we used so that we could make sure that we were supporting our local community restaurants as well.

Who makes the SCBA Charitable Foundation possible?

It's a Herculean effort of a whole group of people. We have about 15 volunteers. And they all work tirelessly. I am honored to work with that group of people who are so willing to give up their time and their money and everything to really help out. We also have a wonderful group of supporters through the courts, the other lawyers who come to all of our events. We're always hitting them up for buying tickets and coming to events and they always reach into their pockets. So works out really well.

In your work as a family lawyer, what are you noticing with the people you work with?

In today's world, a lot of the things that I'm seeing with children, as a person who represents them, is the anxiety the fear. They have no place to go to let out their steam you know. I don't see as many kids right now because I'm trying to try to keep them out of the office. But I saw some recently, and I bought individually little toys for them to play with so that they can feel comfortable. Therapists are very important now, and I have a great network of therapists who work with kids. 

What resources are available for partners or families?

Therapy, whether it be mediation, whether it be just consulting, just to feel better about what opportunities are there. Some people don't even realize, they'll come and ask about divorces. But one of the first questions I always ask is, ‘Did you go to a therapist? Is there something that you can do? Do you think you can mediate it?’ So you’re not causing extra anxiety so that you're not spending money that you don't really have right now. 

There's a lot of mediation projects that really do help with that. Rather than spending a year or two in court, and now all of our court appearances are virtual, and so that that also helps keep some of the anxiety down because people don't have to appear in court.