Holland & Knight established its Community Services Team (CST) in 1990 to more effectively marshal our resources to accomplish social change. The CST is a structured, institutionalized division within the PCS department, drawing on all of the firm's resources and staffed by full-time lawyers with extensive knowledge and experience in their fields of practice.

Washington, D.C., Partner Steve Hanlon, founder and manager of the Community Services Team, has a long history of successful civil rights litigation and advocacy for underprivileged people. Mr. Hanlon's major civil rights work has included challenges to high stakes testing, challenges to indigent defense systems, a claims bill in the Florida Legislature for the survivors of the town of Rosewood, housing, employment and AIDS discrimination, death penalty litigation, prisoner rights, and a constitutional challenge to unconsented medical experimentation.

Washington, D.C., Partner Bill Sessions is a former United States District Court Judge and the former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who works closely with The Constitution Project and other organizations in affecting important social change.

Jacksonville Partner Buddy Schulz is the former chairman of the firm's Litigation Section and one of Holland & Knight's most experienced trial lawyers.

Laura A. Fernandez is senior pro bono counsel based in Washington, D.C. She works on a wide variety of matters, including death penalty cases, prison reform litigation, challenges to indigent defense systems, and litigation on behalf of individuals with developmental disabilities.