By Thea Jarvis

Terry Walsh, the newly elected president of the Atlanta Bar Association, didn’t acquire an overnight concern for the disadvantaged when he took office this May. The Cathedral of Christ the King parishioner has had an abiding interest in both indigent defense and the juvenile justice system that dates to his law school days at Emory University.

If Capitol area kids can come out of this with a positive attitude,” then his work on the campaign and the long hours he has put in “shepherding the cause through the labyrinth of city politics” will have been “a satisfying experience,” Walsh said.

Walsh, a partner with the Atlanta law firm of Alston and Bird, pays the bills with a commercial practice, but admits pro bono work is where his heart lies.

“That’s the fun stuff,” he said of his efforts on behalf of the elderly, the poor, young people and those whose knowledge of the legal system is limited. The Atlanta Bar presidency, he feels, is a further opportunity “to enlist others in support of the critical needs we have for indigent defense and changes in the juvenile justice system.”

Walsh’s current focus is the Capitol area community in Atlanta, a 5,000-resident tract of public housing and deteriorating private homes in the shadow of the state Capitol. Walsh and his wife, Pat, a member of Central Presbyterian Church, chair the campaign to raise monies and volunteers for a $10,000 square-foot community center. The facility will continue to work of Capitol Area Ministries (CAM), a multi-church sponsored outreach to area families.

The 30-year-old coalition of local residents and sponsoring churches offers a rainbow of services to children and adults. Vacation, after-school, sports and tutoring programs are available for youth. On the adult level, CAM includes literacy classes, a food pantry and grocery service, senior citizen outings and child care.

Peggy Lang, chairman of the board, said CAM is “more a preventive type of organization, a long-term commitment that fills the needs and the time of children and adults with positive programs.”

Mrs. Lang, a retired teacher and member of Central Presbyterian Church, characterized the programs as “very effective,” indicating the need to “spread the word to the larger community” about the CAM model.

The new center will include a multi-use gymnasium, activity rooms and offices. A toddler play area, funded and designed by Save the Children’s Neighborhood Childcare Project, is planned for an area adjacent to the center.

“We’ve underestimated the need for something like (a community center) in our neighborhood,” said Grace Syfox, assistant office manager at CAM. Pointing to increasing participation in CAM programs by local residents, Ms. Syfox said the center was “long overdue for this area.”

“Neither the public nor the private sector can do it alone,” said Walsh. “If we’re going to impact what happens in the inner city,” it has to be a partnership.

So far, the partnership has come just $100,000 short of a $1.2 million dollar goal, with donations from 16 private foundations, civic organizations, churches and individuals.

The city of Atlanta will lease property for the community center for one dollar a year to CAM and relocate and refurbish a baseball field in Rawson Washington Park to make room for the new facility.

Catholic Social Services recently approved a $4,000 Campaign for Human Development grant to continue CAM’s teen program, “A Different Approach,” which fosters self-esteem and provides healthy outlets for high-risk youth.

Walsh’s colleagues at Alston and Bird have been generous in their financial and moral support of the capital campaign he is promoting.

“We’ve made a good bit of progress,” said Walsh, crediting the goodwill of others rather than his own efforts. He expects construction on the community center to begin this fall and is looking for an influx of volunteers to assist in the expanded programming the center can then offer.

Walsh is hopeful that outreach in the Capitol area can become even more ecumenical, citing a lack of any strong Catholic presence in CAM as a source of personal disappointment. Of the almost 30 churches throughout the state that support CAM, none is Catholic.

“I’m convinced there is a substantial number of churches” that can still be involved, Walsh said.

A former chairman of Christ the King’s school board, former co-president of the Marist Parents Club and father of three, Walsh is partial to projects impacting young people.

“If (Capitol area) kids can come out of this with a positive attitude,” then his work on the campaign and the long hours he has put in “shepherding the cause through the labyrinth of city politics” will have been “a satisfying experience,” he said.

Walsh’s background has given him heart and spirit for the challenge he faces as leader of the 5,500-member Atlanta Bar Association and advocate for those whose voice is often unheard in the courtrooms and corridors of the American justice system.

A native Atlantan, he was an undergraduate at Brown University, playing football for Coach John McLaughry, an individual who had a strong influence on his life. When he left Providence in 1965, he returned to Atlanta with a bride-to-be and a nose for law. For three and a half years, he worked at Trust Company Bank during the day and attended Emory Law School at night, an experience he remembers as grueling. “If it were any harder, I wouldn’t have made it,” he said.

In the fall of 1969, he decided to direct all his energies toward law studies. With one child and one on the way, a wife working in the Head Start program in Cabbagetown and cash flow at a minimum, Walsh took the plunge.

“I didn’t have any money,” he said, so he approached his employers at Trust Company, who loaned him funds to attend school as a full-time day student.

“I knocked them dead in those four quarters” it took to finish his law degree, Walsh remembered. “I felt like I had been let out of jail.”

At Emory, Walsh wrote a paper on the Bail Reform Act of 1966, which opened his eyes to the inequities of pretrial release, particularly as it related to those with poor credit. When he graduated from law school in 1970, such imbalances in the legal system became a focus of his concern. He was hired by what was then Alston, Miller and Gaines, he feels, on the strength of his broad interests.

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here,” Walsh explained. “It was made clear to me by Philip Alston that I didn’t have to do my time in the corporate legal ladder before I could work on community projects” and the pro bono cases he felt drawn to.

Walsh recalled client Bessie Waters, whose husband had died and left her a small nest egg. She spent these savings and borrowed money for a used car that “was not at all what it was reported to be,” he said.

“Bessie and I sued the dealership and were successful in getting her money back. We even got her a little bit in the way of punitive damages,” said Walsh with satisfaction.

Another case that affected Walsh’s legal sensibilities arose during his pro bono representation of Cuban refugees in the Atlanta Penitentiary. A freedom fighter named Jose Perez had burned Cuban cane fields to protest Castro’s dictatorship and had spent 10 years in Cuban jails before coming to Miami as a legal immigrant in the late eighties.

When he was picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard for his presence aboard a ship carrying marijuana, Perez was sentenced to the federal penitentiary in Miami. During his two-or three-years incarceration in the U.S., said Walsh, Perez “did everything that he could do,” studying English, shop and taking as many self-improvement courses as were available in prison. Upon release, however, he was told he had forfeited his status as a legal immigrant, brought to the Atlanta penitentiary and had served nearly two years when Walsh met him there.

“This was a human being absolutely languishing out there for no good reason,” Walsh remembered, adding that the level of violence and lack of constructive activity for Cuban inmates in Atlanta was well known.

Walsh was eventually able to appeal Perez’ case and secure his release. He still hears from his former client and is gratified that he is now a productive worker and Miami resident.”

“My parents gave me the notion that our existence here is not a gift but a stewardship, and ‘said try to contribute, not just receive.’”