The Western San Bernardino County Bar Association honored attorneys Cory Weck and Donnasue Smith Ortiz and paralegal Susie Carrillo Oct. 5.
Weck, of McCune Law Group, was presented with the Jennifer Brooks Lawyer of the Year Award. Smith Ortiz received the Charles Althouse Lifetime Achievement Award. Carrillo was honored as the Legal Assistant of the Year.
The awards were presented at the WSBCBA’s Installation of Officers & Awards Dinner at Ontario’s DoubleTree by Hilton.
Cory Weck
Weck leads his firm’s personal injury division.
“What this award really is about, for me, is my staff, and my people,” Weck said.
“I owe everything in my life to my family. I know I’m supposed to be this big tough Marine, football-head, but when it comes to my family, they’re everything,” Weck said.
Richard McCune, who introduced him, said that Weck has dedicated himself to teams.
“Cory believes in institutions, he believes in mission, and he believes in teamwork,” McCune said.
Weck ran track, played in varsity football as tailback and in varsity baseball as a catcher, while attending Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead. He also was a student leader in the school’s Academic Decathlon team. He graduated Cornell University in economics and joined the Marine Corps, working his way to be a judge advocate. He earned his law degree from the University of San Diego, while being enlisted, and then studied at the Naval War College in Newport Island. He was then sent to Camp Pendleton as a defense attorney. Weck was promoted to a commander, and then, after two years, became a military prosecutor.
Weck joined private practice with McCune at Welebir and McCune in 2001, after his son was born, but remained in the Marine Corps as an active reservist.
“After working as hard as he did, trying cases and doing all those things while everybody else slipped out for their two, three-week vacation each year, that’s not what Cory did. Cory, as a reserve, went, and was deployed, and served his time. That’s the nature of Cory,” McCune said.
Donnasue Smith Ortiz
Smith Ortiz, a probate specialist, pro tem judge and former bar association president, said the award meant more to her because she considered Charles Althouse a person to look up to.
“He was such a gentleman, and all of us in probate always strived to be like him, because he was always there to answer questions. He was a mentor to me. And I think actually because he was a mentor to me, I tried to be a mentor to others,” Smith Ortiz said.
She has volunteered as a temporary judge since 1994, at one point for as long as three weeks. She kept volunteering, she said, to prevent her colleagues’ cases from being delayed.
“I was committed to it, and I was committed to it because I knew it helped the court, but I also knew it helped my colleagues. If we don’t have pro tems, our cases get continued, and in probate, at some times that’s six months later, and that’s really difficult. Being a pro tem was very important to me,” she said.
Smith Ortiz thanked her family and colleagues for their support, including for their help managing her cases as she has been struggling with cancer and closing down her practice.
While accepting the award, Smith Ortiz said she has been going through old thank you cards from past clients, and realized she has always been working to find alternatives for her clients, even if it’s not a legal alternative. One client, she said, wanted to place his mother in a home. Instead, she helped him find a caretaker.
“She was able to see her house for two more years instead of being forced into a facility. It’s for these kinds of things that I am grateful that I have the opportunity to find alternatives for people. I came into the practice of law wanting to help, and I certainly hope that I have. I know that there are probably some cases, maybe I didn’t do my best on, but I hope that I have done the best that I can, and I hope that I have always been there for my colleagues over the years. I’m very grateful for this award. Thank you so much,” she said.
San Bernardino Superior Judge Tara Reilly stressed Smith Ortiz’s dedication to mentorship in her introduction.
She said Smith Ortiz was motivated to become a probate attorney after she had to deal with her father’s estate at the age of 23—a “mess” that took five years to resolve.
“Balancing her family life, which included caring for her mother along with her legal practice, her extensive bar activities, her dedication and devotion to educating both lawyers and judges, actively participating in her Mormon faith, and filled and fulfilled Donnasue’s life,” Reilly said.
Somehow, Smith Ortiz managed to never miss a field trip for her children. When she was told by teachers that her son would never learn to read, Smith Ortiz became an expert on literacy and individual education plans. She brought him up to a reading level above his grade, and became a resource for other parents who have children with special educational needs.
She also was a judge pro tem in the home, holding a moot court whenever her family had a dispute.
Reilly said Donnasue’s rulings as pro tem were perfect, and were used by Reilly as references on legal issues. She would educate both judges and lawyers, and had the understanding of finite points of law because she would constantly attend ongoing education sessions.
“This award tonight is so well deserved. I have been in awe of this woman from the day she stood up in my courtroom and offered me assistance in the calmest, most professional way. Donnasue has a calm strength that is unparalleled, intensely compassionate, uncommonly sharp insights (and an) impressive, kind of intimidating, intellect,” Reilly said.
Susie Carrillo
Carrillo has spent her paralegal career at Brown White & Osborn, but is now leaving to work at Riverside Legal Aid.
Carrillo thanked the attorneys who encouraged her, as a receptionist, to get her paralegal certification.
“I started off as a receptionist, and my passion was to help people who need legal services,” she said.
Jack Osborn introduced Carrillo, saying that she is the type of legal assistant you want.
“Susie Carrillo has worked for me for the past 13 years, and Susie is not somebody that works for you, in many ways you work for her. Susie is the kind of legal assistant that you really want. She keeps you organized. She tells you when you are messing up. She reminds you, ‘I wrote that pleading for you last week, have you read it, it’s due tomorrow, get busy.’ She keeps you, as an attorney, at your best,” Brown said.
Beyond her incredible hard work, Osborn said, Carrillo makes sure to give back. Twice a month, she volunteers to help self-represented litigants clear their probate notes. She also made sure their firm focuses on each individual client, because each family is important, Osborn said.
Turnover of officers
The incoming bar officers were sworn in at the dinner. Outgoing Bar President Kareem Aref said he was overworked with his clients, his students, his mock trial team and his work for the Bar Association—but that he was recently reminded of why he became a lawyer in the first place.
One of his clients was facing 75 years for a crime he did not commit, and Aref managed to convince the prosecutor that they had too many flaws in his case, and should drop the case. The defendant had been in jail for nine months when he was able to go home and sleep in his own bed, thanks to Aref.
“As I picked him up, we drove back and he said something to me that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. He told me, ‘We’re brothers for life. What you did here I’ll never forget. 24/7, 365, if you need something I’m here, because when I needed help, you were the one that gave it.’ I realized that for most of us, maybe all of us, the reason we became lawyers in the first place, the reason we ascended to the bench, the reason we do what we do day in and day out, the reason we tolerate the exhaustion, is because we all are the people that, when someone is in their darkest moment, when someone is scared, when someone is facing down the system, when someone needs help, we’re the heroes,” Aref said.
He continued to say that attorneys should mentor the next generation, pointing out the table of students from the University of La Verne College of Law.
Aref said it was an honor to lead the Bar Association, thanked everyone who attended the dinner, and asked for a round of applause for the people in the room.
The new bar president is Taylor Warner, who said she will be focusing on legal education and mentorship, and wants to “give back what I have taken” from the bar association.
“I can appear today with a deep sense of honor and responsibility as I take on the role of president of the Western San Bernardino County Bar Association. Each year that I’ve attended this Installation of Officers Dinner, whether it has been as a law student, as a member of the organization, or as a board member, I always reflect on what an amazing community of lawyers, judges and legal professionals that we do have. I always say the best county to practice law in is San Bernardino County,” Warner said.
