Excerpt:
Jack Helinger, the first recipient of the award, calls Campbell an "absolutely outstanding person and a lawyer. She's beyond just being friendly. She has a good heart. To her credit, she brings that good heart to her lawyering skills. The (Terri) Schiavo case is obviously the most noteworthy. That is a case that reasonable minds can differ as to what's right and what's wrong. But she brought not only her legal abilities to that case, but also her personal good heart and passions."
For Campbell, the Schiavo right-to-life lawsuit has been among her toughest cases. She took the lawsuit in 1998 at the request of malpractice attorney Glenn Woodworth. "I met with the family (Bob and Mary Schindler) and looked at some of the records and thought this was really sad that these poor parents weren't ready to let their daughter go," Campbell says.
"Her parents asked me to please visit Terri once before I decided against accepting the case. I met Terri in a nursing home. I saw how much she responded to her family. Her dad was telling her football jokes and she was grimacing, making pouty faces, over his corny jokes. When her mom talked to her, she made noises toward her mom. She clearly responded to her."
Campbell took on the Schindlers' plight to save their daughter whose husband, Michael, was seeking court approval to remove her feeding tube, saying she was in a persistent vegetative state.
Campbell, working without compensation, took the case to trial in 2000 in front of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer and lost. But the lawsuit is far from over. It's now being fought by attorney Patricia Fields Anderson, who obtained another trial that resulted in another win for Michael Schiavo. But the matter is now under consideration by the 2nd District Court of Appeal.
As a result of the Schiavo suit, Campbell says she has become more aware of people who have disabilities and their daily struggles. "It was truly a blessing for me to have been involved in that case," she says. "I see brain injured people like Terri who are now walking and talking and able to participate joyfully in their life. I'm much more aware of the rights of the disabled. It seems like there are many people who feel that someone like Terri, a brain injured person, is someone who doesn't matter. That's not true."
Some hearts are softened and some are hardened.