COSTA MESA, California, July 30, 2012 – Rutan & Tucker, LLP, Orange County’s largest full-service business law firm, again co-sponsored Summer at the Center, an award-winning education program created by Segerstrom Center for the Arts for at-risk and underserved youths.
Summer at the Center is a rigorous two-week experience that helps local high school-aged ACCESS (Alternative, Community and Correctional Education Schools and Services) students build critically important life skills. The program employs the performing arts to help them change their lives for the better.
Participants learn to deal with adversity, build self-esteem, develop social skills and become peer role models by engaging in specially designed music and theater workshops that include musical theater singing, dancing and acting lessons. Guest speakers, such as musicians, actors, directors and program alumni, help reinforce what they are learning.
“We are delighted to support a worthwhile program like Summer at the Center,” said Kim Thompson, the firm’s managing partner. “Rutan is legal counsel for several school districts, so we are well aware of the challenges facing at-risk students and applaud a program that helps them change their lives.” The firm also provides legal counsel for the Center.
Rutan supported the program by providing lunchtime meals to the students during their time at the Center. This year, Rutan’s summer class of law students put aside their law books to serve lunch to the youths. The law students included Patrick Donegan of USC Gould School of Law; Jeffrey Gonzalez and Allina Hightower of Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall), UC Berkeley; Emily Hester of UC Davis School of Law; Lucas Hori, Matthew Reinert and Joseph Soliman of UCLA School of Law; and Alejandro (Peter) Zaffaroni of New York University School of Law. Also representing Rutan were Director of Marketing Cynthia Kaiser and Marketing Coordinator Dana Ross.
Approximately 40 local youths participated in this summer’s program, which was developed by the Center’s Education and Community Programs Department and has become a U.S. Department of Education model program. Each year, the program culminates in a Broadway musical-style review performed in the Samueli Theater.
About Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Segerstrom Center for the Arts presents a wide variety of the most significant national and international productions of music, dance and theater to the people of Southern California. It is committed to supporting artistic excellence on all of its stages and offering unsurpassed experiences, engaging the entire community in new and exciting ways through the unique power of live performance and an array of inspiring programs. As Orange County’s largest non-profit arts organization, the Center owns and operates the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall and intimate 250-seat Founders Hall, which opened in 1986, and the 2,000-seat Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which opened in 2006 and also houses the 500-seat Samueli Theater, and the Lawrence and Kristina Dodge Education Center’s studio performance space and Boeing Education Lab. A spacious arts plaza unites these state-of-the-art facilities. It offers many education programs designed to inspire young people through the arts. These programs reach hundreds of thousands of students of all ages with vital arts-in-education programs, enhancing their studies and enriching their lives well into the future.
About Rutan & Tucker LLP
Rutan & Tucker is California’s largest full-service law firm headquartered in Orange County, California with offices in Costa Mesa and Palo Alto. In addition to labor and employment law, other primary practice areas include business and real estate litigation, corporate and securities law, intellectual property, real estate, municipal and government agency law, land use law, bankruptcy, condemnation and property valuation, environmental law, and taxation and estate planning. Detailed information about the firm is available at www.rutan.com.