Every month, Southern Arizona
Legal Aid’s Volunteer Lawyers
Program (VLP) recognizes an
attorney for his or her efforts
and contributions to the program.
The VLP’s monthly award is a distinct honor:
of the 1220
attorneys who volunteer their
time with the VLP, only 12
receive the VLP’s Outstanding
Pro Bono Attorney award each
year.
Jim Jutry was selected to receive
the Outstanding Pro Bono Attorney of the Month Award
for November 2011.
Jim has been a member of the VLP since 2000 .
During that time,
Jim has
helped community based nonprofit groups with tax,
corporate, partnership
and general business matters.
Jim has also been
instrumental in the training
of new volunteer lawyers.
Recently Jim
volunteered to assist a fledgling non-
profit organization located in northern Arizona.
The group wished
to form a
501(c)(3) organization in order to address the
housing crisis as it relates to
those affected by environmental sensitivities.
Jim assisted the
group in forming
their organization, prepared the governing documents
and drafted and revised
the IRS application for exemption.
Jim also provided
advice regarding the
operation of a tax exempt entity.
Jim was successful
and received a favorable
IRS determination.
Jim dedicated 56
hours to this matter.
The organization
can now move forward with their plans to connect
private donors with individuals
in need of housing aid, award small grants to
individuals for home and trailer
renovation projects, and award larger grants for
individuals to purchase or build
a
safer home or trailer.
Q & A with Jim Jutry
Where are you from?
I was born
and raised in Tucson – that means I have
been here for more than half a century (ouch!).
Where did you go to College?
I have
undergraduate and masters degrees in
Accounting from the
University of Arizona.
My JD is from the
University of
Arizona, and I have an
LLM (Taxation) from the University of Florida.
What is the history of your practice of law?
I have worked with
DeConcini
McDonald since 1978.
I am thinking
about making it my career.
What drives you to volunteer with VLP?
Our firm has
always encouraged
and valued VLP
representation and all types of civic and community
service.
We all want Tucson to be
a great place to live, and a little volunteer work
always helps.
Other VLP volunteers you’d like to give a shout out
to?
VLP representation
is truly a firm-wide
undertaking for us.
Most of my VLP
referrals involve working
with nonprofit
organizations and one of our certified paralegals,
Robin Barnes,
works a lot in that area.
I try to get Robin
to do all the work and then I try to
take all of the credit.
