Without Jeff Bramlett, the Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore partner who died of cancer two years ago, Children’s Rights might not have opened its new Atlanta office—the first beyond its New York headquarters.

Bramlett teamed up with the group, a national legal watchdog for children mistreated in foster care, in 2002 to win the landmark “Kenny A.” class action that started reforms to Georgia’s treatment of foster children.