Daily Journal, "Lawyers' Gun-Control Group Anniversary Fundraiser Will Feature Baez"

          Singer and activist Joan Baez will perform Monday evening at an anniversary dinner and fundraiser for a lawyers' gun-control group founded in the wake of the massacre at 101 California St.
          Elizabeth Cabraser, founding partner of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley also will be on hand when the Legal Community Against Violence, a firearms regulation advocacy group, celebrates its 13th anniversary.
          In 2004, at Daly's request, the group began working with the Illinois Gun Law Reform Project, a multiyear collaboration with Chicago, providing legal and technical assistance to help the city secure stronger state and local gun policies in Illinois.
          The group's new director, Robyn Thomas, will be introduced at the event. Previously, Thomas, an attorney, served as director of the Tikkun Community in Berkeley.
          She will succeed Sue Ann Schiff, who steps down after five years with the organization.
          "It has become an important organization nationally within the gun violence prevention movement," Schiff said.
          After mobilizing the legal community in San Francisco to urge adoption of a federal assault-weapons ban in 1994, Schiff said, the group began working with local communities throughout California to help them adopt gun regulations.
          So far, the group has helped more than 100 communities adopt gun violence prevention regulations, and a number of the measures ultimately became state law, including a ban of the manufacture and sale of junk guns adopted in 1999.