Ballard Spahr lawyer William A. Hicks III will be honored with the Adoption Sustaining Award of Excellence by the Children’s Law Center at today’s Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP) of Maricopa County’s For Love of Justice Reception.
Mr. Hicks is a longtime volunteer for the Children’s Law Center, where he dedicates his time to helping family members and others obtain custody of young relatives or foster children when the parents cannot or will not care for them. Both before and after joining Ballard Spahr in 2007, Mr. Hicks has devoted hundreds of hours assisting in the adoptions of vulnerable children. He credits his wife, a Superior Court judge, with encouraging his initial involvement in children’s advocacy.
“The thing I find most gratifying about volunteering through VLP is the opportunity to be of service to individuals and families who are unable to navigate through our legal system alone,” said Mr. Hicks. “They lack the ability and/or the money to engage qualified counsel on their own. Successfully completing an adoption which joins a loving family with an orphan, or an abandoned or abused child, is truly gratifying.”
The Children’s Law Center was founded in 1998 to protect the legal rights of underprivileged and at-risk children in Maricopa County. It holds free legal clinics for teens, coordinates guardian ad litem representation, counsels on adoption and guardian matters, and ensures that disabled children receive the benefits to which they are entitled. The organization has helped hundreds of children.
Mr. Hicks is a public finance lawyer who focuses his practice on tax-exempt finance, including general obligation, revenue, and special assessment bonds; lease-purchase certificates of participation; and nonprofit corporations. He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and a member of the Executive Committee of the Arizona Council on Economic Education and the President of the Princeton Alumni Association of Central and Northern Arizona.
