Safeguarding the Vote
Julie Braman Kane co-founded an organization that sends out legal professionals to keep an eye on elections
Published in 2024 Florida Super Lawyers magazine
By Alison Macor on June 20, 2024
Not long after co-founding the Voter Protection Action Committee in 2010, Miami trial attorney Julie Braman Kane flew to Georgia to offer legal expertise during a statewide election. Assigned to a community polling location outside Atlanta, Kane discovered the local volunteers had been working together for years, some even decades. They had the Election Day routine down to a science, even setting up a fryer so they didn’t have to leave to grab lunch.
Kane was the outsider, and a new volunteer in the space of voting rights, but the locals made her feel immediately at ease.
“They were so kind and nice, and they had questions,” remembers Kane, who was stationed in the “boiler room” (i.e., call center) where she and other trained lawyers took phone calls from local voters, answered their questions and helped them find their correct precincts. “I was really nervous, but instead I was made to feel so incredibly welcome. I feel like we made a difference then, and I was able to come back to Miami and say, ‘We can do this all over the country.’”
VPAC has grown into a national bipartisan organization as part of the American Association for Justice. Its mission? To help place lawyers and other trained legal professionals in polling places across all 50 states, to make sure voters’ constitutional rights are protected.
Kane, a partner at Colson Hicks Eidson, is as impassioned about her pro bono work as she is about the high-stakes plaintiff’s litigation she handles. In the early 1990s, as a law student at the University of Miami, Kane clerked for Colson, assisting the firm’s partners with a pro bono adoption. “We’ve always had a big focus on pro bono work,” says Kane, who has been with the firm ever since. “We’ve always emphasized it, supported it, and encouraged it for all of our lawyers.”
In 2008, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist appointed Kane to the Florida Elections Commission after a state senator recommended her for the post. Though the appointment eventually ended in 2011, her interest in election procedures didn’t.
“I was looking for a way for those of us who weren’t able to give big dollars to a political action committee to have the opportunity to do something helpful and productive and protect the Constitution,” says Kane, who had been hearing from colleagues in the trial community about instances of voter-protection rights being challenged.
Although no longer co-chair of VPAC, Kane continues to volunteer with the organization. “There have been multiple Election Day efforts when we were able to assist those voting provisionally to generate the appropriate documentation so that their votes ultimately were counted,” says Kane. VPAC is seeing an uptick in volunteerism in this year’s high-stakes elections. But Kane expects it to be business as usual for the volunteers.
“What they’re doing is not tied to a candidate or to a party or to financial contributions or to any campaign,” she says. “The law is the law.”
While her caseload often demands that her schedule remain fluid, she plans to be available to volunteer that first Tuesday in November. “More likely than not,” says Kane, “I’ll be doing something to help protect the constitutional rights of voters.”
I was looking for a way for those of us who weren’t able to give big dollars to a political action committee to have the opportunity to do something helpful and productive and protect the Constitution.
Promoting Pro Bono
Kane likes encouraging others to consider pro bono work. “Volunteering to help someone feels really good,” she says. Here’s her advice for how and why to get involved this election season.
In addition to VPAC (justice.org/ways-to-give/volunteer/vpac), she recommends the nonpartisan coalition Election Protection (866ourvote.org).
Find out what kind of support is available at your firm for pro bono work. “Speak up early, ask what you’re authorized to do and whether you’re authorized to do whatever you’re interested in, and whether the firm will work with you to make sure you will have the time you need once you make a commitment.”
Kane says it’s important for senior attorneys and partners to encourage pro bono work. “It’s critical to our communities, it’s critical to the development of young lawyers, and it’s critical to make those young lawyers feel good about the profession.”
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