Elizabeth Baker Receives Florida Bar 11th Circuit Court Pro Bono Service Award

Coral Gables, FL – Elizabeth S. Baker, Of Counsel in Hinshaw’s Coral Gables office, has received The Florida Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Award for the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida. This award is given to lawyers, groups and a member of the judiciary who have freely given their time and expertise in making legal services available to the poor. The ceremony for this award took place on Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 3:30 p.m. at the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee.

Ms. Baker focuses her practice in family and domestic litigation at the trial and appellate levels. Through her more than 4,000 hours of pro bono work and her private practice representation, she has contributed greatly to the advancement of the Family Law Bar in Florida achieving results that protected her clients’ rights and interests.

She currently serves as a pro bono guardian ad litem for children in difficult custody cases that come before judges in the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida. Two noteworthy cases she worked on include successfully removing two small children from the home in a domestic violence matter where the mother was routinely beaten by her husband. Another domestic violence matter she handled involved the successful removal of the husband from the home, and subsequent divorce, from a battered spouse in a Tunisia-arranged marriage.

In 1978, Baker co-founded The Safespace Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization that provides support and services for women and children at certified domestic violence shelters in Miami-Dade County. She has served as Safespace’s president and currently sits on the organization’s Board of Directors. Since its inception, Baker has provided Safespace with pro bono assistance and represented individual battered women referred to her by the organization.

Baker has received numerous awards and recognitions for her pro bono legal work. She received the 2014 Sara Hopkins Woodruff Spectrum Award in the volunteerism category from the American Red Cross’s Miami chapter in recognition for her dedication to organizations that improve the quality of people’s lives. She also won the 2013 Benjamin L. Cardin Public Service Award from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, given to an alumna who has demonstrated significant contributions to furthering the ideals of public service in the law. Baker received her Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland School of Law.