For Immediate Release
August 09, 2004

Contact:
Jeff Thaler, Esq.
(207) 774-1200
Jason Wolfe
(207) 883-6083
E-mail: jason@wolfenews.com
Web Site: http://www.bssn.com

PORTLAND, Maine – The law firm of Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson is calling on the community to help a family from Sudan that lost everything in a fire earlier this summer in Portland.

Lawyers and employees of the firm to date have raised more than $3,200 for the family as well as donating beds, chairs, tables, dressers, kitchen equipment, clothing, and other supplies.

The mother of the family of seven who lost all their possessions in the fire, Betress Ako, had worked at Bernstein, Shur. The firm also is assisting her in replacing important immigration paperwork lost in the blaze.

“They continue to be in need, so we are calling on people to donate more or give what they can,” said Jeff Thaler, a partner at the firm and who along with paralegal Susan Spescha is heading up the effort to help the family. “We wanted to help them - not only because we know Betress but because they are a wonderful family and as refugees, are far from their friends and family in Sudan.”

To make a money donation to the Ako family, please forward checks, made out to Trinity Church Rectors Fund, to Susan Spescha at Bernstein Shur, P.O. Box 9729, Portland, ME 04104-5029. Or contact her at the firm at 774-1200.

Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson is one of northern New England’s largest law firms with 80 attorneys in offices in Portland and Augusta, Maine and Manchester, New Hampshire. For more information, visit the firm’s web site at www.bssn.com.

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