Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Gregg Ramos: Live United

"We're all in this together"

Nashville attorney and advocate A. Gregory ("Gregg") Ramos is featured prominently in a brochure for the Nashville United Way's fundraising campaign entitled "Live United." Ramos' quote for the piece:
"Living united means raising awareness - and raising your voice - about our community's needs. I consider myself an advocate for United Way, not only by contributing personally to the campaign, but also by sharing the message of its mission. We're all in this together."
Ramos has lived out this message and mission most prominently in his efforts to steer Nashville away from foreign language-stifling rules (proposed both this year and last in different forms) and to find civil solutions for ordinary visaless immigrants instead of the one-size-fits-all 287(g) process currently in place, including for pregnant women such as Juana Villegas.

Ramos' causes are finding sympathetic ears, in that Nashvillians are increasingly recognizing the sinister side of the current incarnation of English Only, which looks like a foreign language blackout. Ramos also reports that Sheriff Daron Hall has recently indicated a willingness to ramp down the severity of its department's treatment of pregnant women in custody, which is a step forward in the context of the Villegas case.

Ramos often tells how he is inspired by his parents, who came to Arizona from Mexico, and by his father, who did not learn English until he served in World War II.

Ramos was recently named to the 33rd class of Leadership Nashville. His further accomplishments are summarized in his bio:
Ramos was President of the Nashville Bar Association in 2004. He is a member of North, Pursell, Ramos & Jameson PLC in Nashville, TN, where he maintains a general civil litigation practice with an emphasis in the areas of workers' compensation and employment law as well as personal injury. He received his J.D. degree from Arizona State University in 1980 and his B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from the same university in 1977.

After practicing law in Arizona for four years as an Assistant Prosecutor for the City of Phoenix, Ramos moved to Tennessee in 1984 so his wife Sandy could pursue a songwriting career in Country Music. (Sandy’s songs have been recorded by the Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill, Anne Murray, Kenny Rogers, Lee Greenwood, Barbara Mandrell and a host of others). Sandy and Gregg have two children, Melody, age 25, and David, age 20. Mr. Ramos is a member of the Nashville, Tennessee, and American Bar Associations as well as the State Bar of Arizona.

Ramos is the immediate past president of Catholic Charities of Tennessee. In addition, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of the following organizations: United Way of Metropolitan Nashville (Chair of the HR Committee), Board President of Conexion Americas (a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Hispanic families realize their aspirations for social and economic advancement by promoting their integration into the Middle Tennessee community), and the Tennessee Justice Center, whose mission is to advocate on behalf of poor Tennesseans. Ramos serves as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the American Constitution Society, an organization dedicated to ensuring that our country’s founding values of human dignity, individual rights and liberties, genuine equality and access to justice enjoy their rightful, central place in American law.

Governor Bredesen appointed Ramos in 2006 to serve on the Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council. He also is a past member of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Committee on Public Trust and Confidence in the Courts. Finally, Ramos serves on the Tennessee Education Lottery’s Advisory Council on Minority Business Participation and is an Executive Committee member of the Metro Bar Caucus, an affiliate organization of the American Bar Association.

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