Firm Recognized as Midwest Foster Care & Adoption Association “Outstanding Community Partner”

Shook, Hardy & Bacon was recognized by the Midwest Foster Care & Adoption Association (MFCAA) with an “Outstanding Community Partner” award during the organization’s Forever Families Gala Auction on August 21, 2010, at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City.

MFCAA’s mission is to “provide every child who has experienced abuse, neglect or abandonment a safe nurturing family and the promise of a brighter tomorrow.” The organization, celebrating 10 years of supporting foster and adoptive families, honored the firm “for significant personal and corporate contributions of time, talent and resources to the foster and adopted children of Missouri.”

Shook has been a long-time MFCAA partner. The firm’s lawyers have provided pro bono legal assistance in cases with a lasting impact, changing a countywide foster care system and saving state funding that supports children adopted from foster care. Individual attorneys, paralegals and administrative assistants have served on MFCAA’s board, accepted pro bono referrals, held fundraisers, organized clothing drives, supported holiday gift programs and annual back-to-school drives, developed training programs and classes, and established a special fund, Lawyers for Kids, that grants the “wishes” of children in foster and adoptive families.

Among those MFCAA Executive Director Lori Ross singled out in praising the “amazing work” the firm has done were Of Counsel Lori Burns-Bucklew, Partners Gene Balloun and Jim Muehlberger, Paralegal Kylene Batiz, former Associate Teresa Laidacker, and former administrative assistant Kay Porter.