By MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

With the new year days away, we picked two area attorneys we'll be keeping our eyes on throughout 2010.

Though one is a veteran litigator and the other is only a few years into her legal career, both are at key junctures. Jessica Lazarin made the move last year from private practice to an agency that provides legal services for indigent clients, and Vivian Quinn just took over a major practice group at one of the largest law firms in the Northeast.

Read on to get a sense of what these two attorneys will be focused on in the coming year.

Jessica Lazarin
Immigration attorney, ECBA Volunteer Lawyers Project

Lazarin, 31, was happily employed at Phillips Lytle LLP when a positive experience with a pro bono case spurred her to move to the less lucrative but, she says, incredibly satisfying world of civil legal services.

Today, Lazarin spends her time fighting to free detained immigrants. Due to budget constraints, she limits her focus to cases involving incarceration, but with the need on the rise, she hopes in '10 to be able to secure the means to expand what she does.

"If we had the ability to increase our funding, we could help a lot of people that are on the street," she says. "It's heartbreaking, because not everybody understands English so well and they just keep trying, and we have to turn them away."

Lazarin, who is also president of the Minority Bar Association of Western New York, says additional funding and volunteers in 2010 would make it possible to expand services that today are limited to detained men only.

"We don't get to help detained women because they are held in the county jails, and we don't have the money to drive to each facility to meet with one woman at a time," she says. "We can go to (the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in) Batavia and see a library full of men twice a week that need our help."

Vivian Quinn
Deputy chair of the litigation department, Nixon Peabody LLP

Quinn, 57, heads into 2010 with a new role at Nixon Peabody LLP - second in command of one of the highest-profile practice groups in the firm.

Recently named deputy chair for the firm's litigation department, Quinn will help lead more than 300 attorneys working in 17 offices nationwide.

"I will have a major role in associate development across the firm," Quinn says of her new position. "That will involve not only education but lateral recruiting, retention and looking for opportunities to bring along the next generation."

Despite the economic uncertainty as she embarks on her new position, Quinn sees great opportunities and is anxious to help the firm prosper in 2010.

"I know people are saying, ‘Buckle up, it's going to be a rough ride,' " she said. "We need to be as creative and inventive as possible to continue to grow."

Editor's note: These profiles will be part of Buffalo Business First's upcoming People to Watch section. See the complete feature in the Jan. 1 issue of Business First.