FEATURED ORGANIZATIONS

The Phil Shawe Summer Charity Gala was held on July 20, 2017 at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge.

Guests were received at the incredible 1 Hotel Rooftop for a cocktail reception featuring specialty cocktails and iconic views of the Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty, and Manhattan Skyline.

After an unforgettable sunset, the gathering moved downstairs for the Gala dinner and was greeted by local Brooklyn jazz quartet, Garden Party. Guests mingled in the 1 Hotel’s Social Space which abuts the lush Brooklyn Bridge Park and had a chance to speak with representatives of the four charitable groups that were being featured throughout the evening:

• The V Foundation for Cancer Research
• Key West Film Festival
• Resilience Rising
• TransPerfect Advocate Benefiting the Ali Forney Center

As guests sat for dinner the evening’s host, Phil Shawe, thanked those assembled for joining including the night’s guest of honor, property rights advocate, Susette Kelo. Phil also thanked members of the TransPerfect team who’d joined from across the globe, including members of the San Francisco, Atlanta, London, Washington DC, and Barcelona offices. When asked who in the room was part of the TransPerfect family, roughly half the crowd erupted into raucous applause.

The first portion of the night’s program centered on recognizing the finalists of the Philip R. Shawe Challenge, a scholarship competition for second and third-year law students that had concluded earlier in the evening. The top three finalists (including one team of two) had presented their oral arguments at Brooklyn Borough Hall and after some deliberation; the event’s judges had determined the winners.

The moot court presentation featured a distinguished panel of judges, who honored the top ten competitors, and heard oral defenses by the top three student teams. Professor Alan Dershowitz, Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick (Ret), Senior Associate Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, Justice Melvin Schweitzer (Ret), New York State Supreme Court, Commercial Division, and Joseph D. Hansen, former Director of Interns for Justice Schweitzer, New York State Supreme Court, Commercial Division served as the Supreme Court Justices for the competitors.

The winners were:

1st Prize – Steven Hermosa of the University of Florida Levin College of Law
2nd Prize (tie) – Alison Tilden and McKaye Neumeister of Yale Law School
2nd Prize (tie) – Catherine Dowie of Suffolk University Law School

Following the awards presentation, Alan Dershowitz, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Law and a distinguished constitutional legal scholar, delivered a powerful keynote addressing the fundamental legal, business, and property rights implications that were the subject of the competition.

After dinner, the program focused on recognizing the incredible work performed by the evening’s four featured organizations. Representatives from each group shared a little about their work and invited guests to learn more at their tables throughout the reception area.

The organizations present were:

The V Foundation for Cancer Research

The V Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to saving lives by helping to find a cure for cancer. The V Foundation seeks to make a difference by generating broad-based support for cancer research and by creating an urgent awareness among all Americans of the importance of the war against cancer. The V Foundation performs these dual roles through advocacy, education, fundraising and philanthropy.

Resilience Rising

Resilience Rising combats the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the United States by providing a ten-bed residential program for survivors with opportunities for safety, healing, and empowerment. Serving eight adolescent females and two small children to accommodate teenage mothers, Resilience Rising provides a long-term, trauma-informed program wherein youth develop the coping and life skills needed to break the inter-generational cycle of abuse and poverty that drives this child welfare, public health, and human rights problem.

TransPerfect Advocate & The Ali Forney Center

The mission of TransPerfect Advocate is to promote the visibility of LGBTQA people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, allies) and matters related to the community both within and outside of the TransPerfect Family of Companies. We are passionate about connecting with the community at large through networking with students and professionals, as well as providing leadership development opportunities within our organization. We are committed to the development and implementation of internal policies and practices through open communication between employees and management to foster an affirming environment for LGBTQ people in the work place.

Donations collected by TransPerfect Advocate were directed to the Ali Forney Center.

The mission of the Ali Forney Center is to protect LGBTQ youths from the harms of homelessness and empower them with the tools needed to live independently.

Key West Film Festival

The mission of the Key West Film Festival is to showcase films that capture Key West’s essence: Creativity, Diversity, Sustainability, and Beauty. Key West enjoys a rich tradition of inspiring residents and visitors alike to approach everything they do with a free and unbridled spirit. We celebrate all things creative as the highest expression of the human soul. The Key West Film Festival is one of the few not-for-profit festivals in the United States.

For more information about the organizations or to make a donation in honor of the Phil Shawe Charity Gala, please visit the event fundraising page.