Blackwell Burke P.A. was proud to be a platinum sponsor of the 13th annual Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association (MHBA) gala, which was held on March 2, 2018, in Minneapolis.
The event honored Tamara Caban-Ramirez and Senator Melisa Lopez Franzen, recipients of the 2018 Manuel Guerrero Courage in Leadership Award.
Named for one of the founders and first president of the MHBA, The Manuel Guerrero Courage in Leadership Award recognizes leaders who go beyond personal achievement and strive to empower the community and advance social change and the capacity of others to improve the wellbeing and prosperity of the Latino community.
Keynote speaker was Kim Rivera, chief legal officer and corporate secretary of HP, Inc.
Blackwell Burke strongly supports of the work of the MHBA. Blackwell Burke attorney Gerardo “Jerry” Alcazar, who attended the gala, is past president of the MHBA, and served as the Region XI President for the Hispanic National Bar Association.
Alcazar observed, “The gala was especially meaningful to the entire Blackwell Burke team because of our firm’s strong support of the work of the Hispanic Bar Association, and our ongoing commitment to promote diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and in the community.”
Diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and in the community are central to Blackwell Burke’s values and mission. When Jerry Blackwell founded the firm in 2006, he did it with the commitment to diversity in mind.
“I wanted to put my energies into trying build a law firm doing institutional work where diversity lives as a leadership priority and to try to be an example of how a diverse environment can work in fact and not just as an on-paper core value or aspirational goal,” he explains.
That’s one reason the firm was proud to sponsor the MHBA’s event celebrating the Latino legal community. Congratulations to the MHBA for another top-notch event!