Hill Ward Henderson is proud to announce that attorney Tori C. Simmons is the recipient of the 2019 Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division (YLD) Pro Bono Service Award. This award recognizes a young lawyer who has performed outstanding public service or legal aid in Florida.
The award is given to the division member who best exemplifies the highest ideals of public service and the nominations submitted for Ms. Simmons emphasized her tireless dedication to pro bono service and volunteerism and perfectly highlight why she is so very deserving for this award. With more than 26,000 members, the Young Lawyers Division includes all lawyers in good standing under age 36 and all new Florida Bar members of any age in their first five years of practice. Ms. Simmons was nominated by the Hillsborough County Bar Association Young Lawyers Division and the Hillsborough Association of Women Lawyers.
Since the start of her practice at Hill Ward Henderson in 2013, Ms. Simmons has proven her dedication and passion to serving the community through pro bono work in leadership and service roles inside and outside of the firm. In 2018 alone, Ms. Simmons contributed over 200 pro bono hours representing poor citizens in the Tampa Bay community through organizations like Bay Area Legal Services, Project H.E.L.P., and Crossroads for Florida Kids. Also in 2018, Ms. Simmons donated her legal services on a pro bono basis to complete the pending merger of Trinity Café and Feeding Tampa Bay, which will unify and strengthen two nonprofits working to alleviate hunger in the Tampa Bay region. In her role as the co-chair for the law firm subcommittee of the 13th Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee, Ms. Simmons has advocated for increased pro bono participation and coordinated pro bono summits and presentations for law firms throughout Tampa.
In addition to her pro bono service outside of the firm, Ms. Simmons has served as the pro bono coordinator for Hill Ward Henderson since 2015. In this role, she encourages firm-wide and individual attorney participation in various pro bono programs, and assists with training for pro bono projects.
Ms. Simmons is an associate in the firm’s Litigation Group. Her practice primarily focuses on complex commercial business litigation. Ms. Simmons represents clients in a variety of business disputes and class action litigation in state and federal court. In addition to her general commercial litigation practice, she represents individuals and firms in professional liability matters.