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How is Women Helping Women Connected to the Legal Community?

By Laurie Rowen

Montage Legal Group is happy to announce that it will be co-sponsoring Women Helping Women’s “The Star Within” Gala, along with the estate planning firm, Katherine J. Hughes, PC (a Montage Legal affiliated attorney and a WHW Board of Director)! The Gala will take place on Friday, April 1, 2011 at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Spa.

As the current President of Women Helping Women’s Board of Directors, I want to make sure that I tell you what this organization is really about. Many of you know that Women Helping Women is a charity that provides career clothing to low-income women to assist them in attaining and sustaining employment. What you may not know is that WHW has a strong connection to the legal community, and that WHW has evolved over the years.

WHW’s Connection to the Legal Community

WHW was started in 1993 by two legal professionals who were survivors of domestic abuse. These two women began their journey to create a life for themselves and their children. They created a program that they believed would help victims of domestic violence break the cycle of poverty, avoid homelessness and improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. These women collected business attire to help other women just like them get back into the workforce. 

Throughout the past two decades, many professions have gotten less formal and have given up the practice of requiring employees to wear suits. Not lawyers! Law is one of the last professions that still requires a closet full of suits. For this reason, WHW relies heavily on the legal community for its business attire donations.

Attorneys are also very active on WHW’s Board of Directors. Along with Laurie Rowen and Katie Hughes, three other lawyers serve on WHW’s Board of Directors: Erica Fisher of Hewitt Wolensky, Erin Denniston of Snell and Wilmer, LLP, and Anne Marie Ellis of Hewitt Wolensky (Advisory Board of Directors). Hewitt Wolensky and Snell and Wilmer, LLP support WHW by sponsoring events, holding clothing drives and volunteering. Both Hewitt Wolensky and Snell and Wilmer, LLP are also sponsors of the “The Star Within” Gala on April 1st.
WHW’s Evolution and Recent Changes
WHW has substantially evolved from 1993 to 2011. WHW’s services were expanded to include all low-income women in transition, including the homeless, drug or alcohol rehabilitated, women on parole, immigrants, women lacking job skills, emancipated youth and welfare mothers. WHW also expanded to support men, with its Men2Work program. WHW has also changed its focus from primarily giving clothing to assist with the interview stage, to a focus on helping these men and women attain and sustain jobs after the interview stage. WHW provides job placement assistance, educational workshops, and computer training.
WHW recently expanded by moving into a beautiful new facility located at 1800 E. Mc Fadden Avenue, Suite 1A in Santa Ana. This much larger building gives WHW space to grow and expand its programs to help more men and women obtain employment and succeed in life.
WHW also has exciting news regarding its leadership. The Board of Directors recently named Janie Wolicki as its new Executive Director. As Executive Director, Janie will be charged with building upon WHW’s success by further developing the organization’s vision, achieving its goals for continued financial stability, community engagement and enhancing the impact of its programs and mission to help prepare women and men for the work place. Ms. Wolicki’s vast experience with large multi-layered organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America and the YMCA have enabled her to provide essential leadership to Boards and staff while accomplishing desired objectives and delivering high quality programs vital to the organizations’ missions. Most recently serving as Director of Development for Children’s Bureau of Southern California, Ms. Wolicki successfully fostered a strong public image through marketing, speaking engagements, and building relationships with community leaders and donors. Janie just started on March 1st, and we are thrilled that she decided to join WHW!
How You Can Get Involved

Attorneys are often actively involved in the community, but it can be difficult to find time to research non-profits and decide which organizations match your personal passions. If you have wanted to get involved in something that will make a positive impact in your community, WHW would love to have your support. Here’s how you can help:

  • Donate Clothing: All attorneys wear suits and get tired of their old suits!! Donate your business attire to Women Helping Women. If you don’t have any suits to donate at the moment, you still can help. WHW also accepts all men and women’s clothing and shoes (i.e. non-business attire), which they sell in “Saturday Sales” and in an upsale retail shop called “Deja New” to support many programs, including their job placement program. If your law firm or business hasn’t already held a clothing drive for WHW, we can help organize one for you. If you have clothing that you want to donate, contact me at [email protected] and I can let you know where to drop off clothing in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.
  • Sponsor or Come to WHW’s April Event: The WHW 7th Annual Models of Success Event, “The Star Within,” is being held on Friday, April 1st at 6:00 p.m. in Newport Beach. This is the first time WHW has thrown a Gala at night, and it will include a dinner-dance, silent auction and many great raffle opportunities. Please come join us! For sponsorship opportunities or to buy a ticket, please contact Denise Macon at 949-631-2333 ext 346 or via email at [email protected].
  • Volunteer: WHW always needs volunteers! Please contact me at [email protected] and together we can look at your skill sets, desires and resources to see where you might fit in at WHW.

There are days when things are so crazy in my life that I feel like something has to go, and I wonder if I have the time to put into Women Helping Women. But the second I speak to one of our dedicated staff members like Brateil Aghasi (our amazing associate director and prior interim executive director) or Trina Fleming (our director of operations), or I stop by our new facilities in Santa Ana and see the amazing clients WHW is currently helping, I realize that my involvement and support of Women Helping Women will never end.

I will leave you with the following quote of a client who WHW recently helped:

I came to WHW insecure and scarred. I had no idea what to expect from the programs. I thought people would place judgment on me or focus on my past mistakes. To my relief, that never happened. Instead, the focus was placed on the possibilities of my future. WHW became the biggest positive step in my recovery and changed my life! After receiving the various employment support I felt more capable, motivated and confident. WHW gave me my womanhood back.

Laurie Rowen founded Montage Legal Group along with Erin Giglia in early 2009.  Laurie graduated magna cum laude from UCLA and was admitted into Phi Beta Kappa. She attended University of San Diego School of Law, where she was an associate editor of the San Diego Law Review and served as President of the Student Bar Association. She obtained her Juris Doctor, cum laude, in 2004.  Laurie joined Snell and Wilmer’s product liability litigaton group following law school.  After having her first daughter, Laurie left Snell and Wilmer to do freelance/contract work, and later started Montage Legal Group. 

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