Community Involvement
We take your community personally.
After all, it’s our community too – we live, work and play right here in the same places you do. We believe strongly in making our communities better places for everyone. Our firm maintains a proud tradition of supporting both corporate-wide and individual efforts in the community.
Our attorneys and professional staff participate in many diverse community service and outreach programs, often taking active roles of leadership. We serve on boards and committees for charitable, arts, civic, and professional groups – locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. We support education at all levels.
Dinsmore & Shohl LLP takes its community service as seriously as it does client service. We are committed to building our community relationships with the same integrity and competence we bring to our business relationships. We know that supporting our colleagues in their interests strengthens the service we provide our clients.
The firm focuses its corporate community efforts on youth activities, including education and assistance programs for homeless and disadvantaged children. A number of charities in each of our locations receives gifts of both resources and time from the firm throughout the year.
Dinsmore & Shohl LLP celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, marking the milestone with a $100,000 contribution and volunteer commitment to nine Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliates in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
“Our founding partners believed in giving back to the profession and the community – and the firm has followed in their footsteps throughout our history,” said
George H. Vincent, Managing Partner and Chairman of the Board of Directors. “Today, we honor our founders and continue that legacy through our support of Big Brothers Big Sisters.”
"It is with profound gratitude that we accept the donation from Dinsmore & Shohl. As a fellow centurion organization (Big Brothers Big Sisters was founded in 1903), we congratulate Dinsmore & Shohl on their milestone and express our sincere appreciation for their gift of financial and volunteer support. The partnership is instrumental in helping us reach the most at-risk children in our region,” said Kathy List, President & CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters Cincinnati.
In addition to a financial contribution, Dinsmore & Shohl attorneys throughout the region have volunteered their time and energy to support Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliates and their mission.
Last summer, Dinsmore & Shohl LLP’s Cincinnati office partnered with the Armleder School, a unique private school. The school offers inner city children an education that stresses accountability and achievement.
Partner Jeff Hinebaugh enjoys visiting the school. Its bright interior reflects the positive attitude of the staff and students and lifts his spirits. Last year, he heard that reading abilities drop off by nearly 24 percent over a summer – primarily because the students don’t read during break. They don’t have the books.
So Jeff recruited his colleagues at Dinsmore & Shohl LLP to sponsor a book fair at the school. Each student picked out three books to read over the summer.
“Reading is so important that we just couldn't ignore the situation,” Jeff said. “By pooling our resources, we were able to find a way to help students maintain – and perhaps even increase – their learning over the summer.”
That’s taking your community personally.
For the past 4 years Joe Tucker, a partner in the Louisville Office, has participated in St. Baldrick's Day in order to raise money for childhood cancer research. Since 2004, Joe has raised over $40,000 by shaving his head in exchange for charitable donations to the St. Baldrick's Foundation. Nationally, St. Baldrick's is the largest volunteer driven charitable organization in the world dedicated solely to funding childhood cancer research. Since its inception in 1999, the St. Baldrick's Foundation has raised over $30 Million Dollars. In 2006, Joe's middle daughter, Brennan (age 7 at the time), joined Joe and shaved her head to show solidarity and sympathy for those young cancer patients who typically lose their hair during treatment. Each year since 2004, Joe and Brennan have been one of the leading fundraisers in Louisville for the St. Baldrick's Foundation. For more information on St. Baldrick's visit
www.stbaldricks.org.
The Charleston Office recently competed in the 22nd Annual Corporate Cup Challenge hosted by the Kanawha Valley YMCA. This competition required Team Dinsmore to compete against other area businesses and organizations in 23 different events over two weeks, including softball, horseshoes, billiards, bowling, golf, swimming, punt/pass/kick, various track and field events, and a spirit competition, which involved a food drive, blood drive, and other philanthropic activities.
Though only in its first year of competition, Team Dinsmore was able to flex its athletic muscle in nearly every event. In the opening weekend, the team fought 90-degree temperatures, multiple back-to-back games, and dehydration over an 8-hour span to secure 6th place in the softball tournament!
J.J. Richardson, an attorney in the Pittsburgh office, is chairman of ImPAct 2007, the annual conference of Pennsylvania Young Professionals. Pennsylvania Young Professionals is an umbrella organization of regional young professionals groups across the Commonwealth, which will unify the effort to tackle critical issues concerning its demographic, including brain drain, economic development and urban decay.
Mr. Richardson considers himself a good profile of the type of professional the state needs to attract: Raised in Erie, he came to Pittsburgh to attend the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, landed a job in the litigation department of Dinsmore & Shohl, and makes his home in a South Side neighborhood. "In part I fell in love with the city ... the opportunities for outdoors activities like camping and mountain biking and dynamic cultural activities. And the cost of living here was attractive," he said.
Though the conference is targeted for professionals between ages 22 and 40, "by no means do we restrict by age," said Mr. Richardson, who is 32. "People who consider themselves young professionals are usually in that age range but not everything has to do with age. They can be people starting off in careers who are new to the corporate world or new to their profession."
The 2008 Pennsylvania Young Professionals Conference will be held in Erie, Pennsylvania
For more information, go to
www.payoungprofessionals.com ___________________________________________________________________________________________
During this season of celebrating holidays, such as Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanzaa, many members of the legal community are sharing their good fortunes with less fortunate children by participating in the Holiday Giving Basket. The Holiday Giving Basket is a community service project sponsored by the Cincinnati Bar Association's Young Lawyers Section, as well as by local Cincinnati attorneys. The program benefits children associated with the
ProKids, Boys & Girls Club and
Boys Hope - Girls Hope.
The Holiday Giving Basket program was started more than a decade ago by the Cincinnati Bar Association. Rick Porotsky, an attorney at Dinsmore & Shohl, has been involved with the Holiday Giving Basket since the mid-1990's. "In 2004 Dinsmore took a lead role, along with a few other firms in continuing the program in a number of ways, including working with local charities and organizations, and then setting up an interactive website for use by donors and charities alike.", Porotsky said. "The Giving Basket has taken a lot of hard work behind the scenes at times, but has always been a lot of fun too."
Read This Article: Legal Community Giving to Kids __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________