Florida Agenda Exclusive- Interview with George Castrataro from Elmwood Forest Productions Inc. on Vimeo.
You’ve seen his face smiling from magazine and newspaper advertisements. He’s on billboards, and on bus stop benches. No doubt about it. George Castrataro is a major attorney with some important clients. But what isn’t known is the amount of pro bono work that the Castrataro firm does as part of its basic business plan.
Getting George Castrataro to speak about it isn’t so easy. He’s not one to brag about helping the poor or downtrodden. But Castrataro began his law career as a attorney in Legal Aid. And helping those who are without means to help themselves is part of his mindset.
“When the firm was first started,” Castrataro told the Agenda, “the concept was that we could generate enough income from fee-paying clients to do some good work. It may have been a lofty concept, but we thought if we could make 10 percent of our business free or pro bono, we would be doing well. Today, we’ve well exceeded that as a base.”
It’s a two-part concept, according to Castrataro. “There is the cash portion, where we just give money in the form of sponsorships and donations: to just about everyone in town; and then there are the pro bono case which don’t fit into any single category.
“I think the largest is the LGBT employment discrimination cases. There is no rule that says you can’t fire someone because they’re gay. There is a county code that is so unenforceable with no teeth that it’s essentially useless. We have so many LGBT employment discrimination cases now that we have one attorney in our practice that just does that. Both the state and federal legislative system have been unsuccessful in passing law which would include anti-gay discrimination, so we deal with it here locally on a case by case basis.
“I represent one of the division chairs at Jackson Memorial Hospital., the teaching facility for the University of Miami’s Medical School,” Castrataro says. “He is a medical doctor and a professor. We are alleging that this doctor is being paid less by the University of Miami than his comparably situated peers because he is gay. He is more qualified than most, but originally paid less. And while the university adjusted his salary after our complaint, now our client wants retroactive pay, and the case itself hasn’t gotten visibility yet. But when (university president) Donna Salala is being deposed, I suspect some people will notice it. Still, it’s a big jump from litigating gay discrimination to wage discrimination because of sexual orientation.”
Even now, with court victories in the same-sex marriage arena, not everyone is being treated equally. “We are hearing all these marriage victory stories and it’s giving the impression that the LGBT community is making forward progress. It is not entirely the case. If you sit here and you see people crying in our offices, you know we’ve got a long way to go. We currently are carrying a workload of about 500 cases, and of those, about a quarter are discrimination issues. And a lot of them are pro bono cases.”
Still, Castrataro doesn’t get to brag or vent even when he wins. “We settle a lot of these cases out of court and when we do, there is a gag order in place and we don’t get to publicize the situation. That’s one of the conditions of the settlement. It does not mean that the discrimination has gone away. Just that it has been hidden.”
But what no longer has to stay hidden is the genuine kindness extended to the needy by the Castrataro Law Firm. Remember that when you see those big billboards and the familiar face on those bus benches. A compassionate attorney is hard to find.
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