In 2016, Gunster Shareholder Mike Freed founded Freed to Run, a six marathons in six days point to point relay, from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, courthouse to courthouse, to raise critical funds and awareness to support pediatric patients and their families in navigating legal obstacles that often impede their health outcomes. Over the next seven years, the annual event raised $2.25 million placed in an endowment to fully fund the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s (JALA’s) Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership (NFMLP), which is part of a nationwide network of projects in which professionals from the medical and legal communities combine resources to produce positive outcomes for low-income and vulnerable patients.
Beginning this year, Freed to Run has been transformed into a 24-hour run over a half-mile track around the Duval County Justice Complex. This initiative will create a Shelter for Elders endowment that will safeguard and strengthen JALA’s legal assistance for indigent seniors, particularly in housing-related issues such as reverse mortgage foreclosures, door-to-door scams, wrongful evictions, substandard living conditions, discriminatory practices and other shelter-related challenges faced by vulnerable older adults.
Participants can join as an individual or relay team to run 24 or 12 hours around the Duval County Courthouse. Each loop is 1/2 mile.
Mike Freed, who founded Freed to Run, is a business litigation shareholder in Gunster's Jacksonville office. Freed holds a vast experience in the courtroom and arbitrations, administrative proceedings and other forms of dispute resolution. He is board certified in business litigation with a practice spanning a wide range of disciplines and industries, including corporate governance, education, health care, hospitality, labor and employment, construction, logistics, transportation and receiverships.
