Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month-May 2021

Jamie Thalgott of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP

Jamie Thalgott was born and raised in Las Vegas. She received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown and her juris doctor from Vanderbilt. She returned to Las Vegas in 2010 to clerk for James Mahan in US District Court. After that, she spent the beginning of her legal career as an associate with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, first in litigation and then in the real estate group. After about five years, she left to work in public service as an Assistant City Attorney with the City of Henderson, representing their Community Development & Services Department, Property Management and Planning Commission. She returned to Brownstein as a shareholder in 2019 in their real estate department.

Jamie first became involved with pro bono by representing children through the Children’s Attorneys Project. During the Covid-19 shutdowns, she started doing the Landlord Tenant Ask-A-Lawyers to help those worried about evictions and foreclosures. When we asked Jamie why she does pro bono, she said that “being a lawyer means having the ability to navigate processes and procedures that are foreign to most people. That knowledge can be expensive to tap into without a pro bono platform. Both I and my firm believe the citizenry is more effective and engaged when informed, which is why one of Brownstein’s core values is ‘giving back’.”

We asked Jamie to share a story about a memorable client and how she helped them. I spent five years representing two children, siblings, first through a trial terminating their parents’ parental rights and then for years as they navigated the foster system. After several challenging placements and court hearings, the kids were finally adopted by the extended family in California of one of their former foster parents. Even when I went to work at Henderson (where we did not take on pro bono matters as we represented a public entity), I sought special permission to continue my representation of the two, as I had probably been the most consistent presence in their life to-date. Thankfully, that is not the case now, as they have a loving home. Without their social worker, and the CAP program, I am not sure this outcome would’ve been available to them, as it was truly a difficult success to achieve.”

For her commitment to pro bono, we honor Jamie Thalgott as our May Volunteer of the Month.