Withers, together with several other New York City law firms, is proud to team with corporate legal departments to take part in the Justice Served Campaign. The Justice Served Campaign is an annual campaign run by Food Bank for New York City aimed at ending hunger throughout the five boroughs. In 2017, law firm efforts provided more than 500,000 meals over the course of the campaign.
One in five New Yorkers depend on Food Bank for New York City to help put food on their table. Every year, the food bank provides roughly 62 million free meals to 1.4 million NYC residents. Throughout the five boroughs, Food Bank for New York City works closely with a network of over 1,000 schools and charities.
The 2018 campaign began on February 5th and runs until March 16th. "As this is our first time enrolled in the campaign, we are very excited to contribute to the tremendous efforts already being put forth by the New York City legal community," said Ivan Sacks, partner and chairman at Withers. "It is great to see various law firms cooperating and working together to help the less fortunate people in our city."
In the current campaign, some of the participating firms in addition to Withers include: Dentons, McLaughlin & Stern, Paul Weiss, Ropes & Gray, Skadden, White & Case, Cadwalader, and Jones Day. If you would like to find out more information about the various volunteer opportunities, please click here.
As part of our involvement in the Justice Served Campaign and in cooperation with the campaign's tax assistance program, Withers hosted a volunteer tax night on Tuesday, February 19th at which Lisa McCann and Thema Emanuel, lawyers in our New York office, served as volunteers. The tax assistance program is designed to help complete tax returns for NYC residents who make less than $55,000 in annual income or who have disabilities that prevent them from filing taxes. On our volunteer tax night, we opened up our conference rooms to volunteers from various law firms to come in and provide tax assistance to those in need. Reflecting on her experience, Thema said "volunteering as a tax preparer with Food Bank has been an extremely rewarding experience. I am grateful for the opportunity to give back to the community in an impactful way by helping low-income New Yorkers maximize their tax refunds and credits."
