In Tribute: Cindy Sewell & Lea Ann Standrich
With the retirements of Cindy Sewell (Third Judicial District Public Defender Office Chief) and Lea Ann Standrich (Sedgwick County Public Defender Office Social Worker) in December, BIDS said farewell to two employees with a combined 65 years plus of service. In recognition of that incredible dedication, we reached out to a few of their respective colleagues, who wrote the following tributes.
[Lea Ann at her desk.]
A Tribute to a Career of Helping
by Dwayna McFerren, Sedgwick County Public Defender
If you were to ask the people of the Sedgwick County office what the best part of working here is, the number one answer you would get is “our coworkers”. While it is cliché to say that the people who work here are the biggest perk of the job, that doesn’t make it any less true. Last week, one of the staples of our office, Lea Ann Standrich, retired. Lea Ann was the Social Worker for our office for 25+ years and her departure has left a gaping hole in the soul of our office.
Lea Ann spent years in our office being a sounding board, a mock juror, and a shoulder to cry on. For all of Lea Ann’s many wonderful helping skills, one of the things that she will be forever remembered or is her love of a good prank. Periodically throughout the years, she would plan elaborate pranks to play on people in the office.
Before Lea Ann retired this year, she decided she was going to go out with a bang and chose a newer attorney, Yannick Cools, as her target. At 8:00 a.m. on the Friday before Halloween, Lea Ann, clad as a burly person wearing boots, jeans, a flannel shirt, and a full, life-like mask hid under Yannick’s computer desk and waited for the perfect moment to scare the daylights out of him. I was in my office when Yannick arrived at work that day and it is safe to say that I have never heard that sound of absolute terror come from a grown man before. Lea Ann’s prank was so realistic and unexpected that the police were almost called!
Despite her wicked sense of humor, Lea Ann was compassionate, empathetic, and extremely kind to all who came across her. Lea Ann went out of her way to help out anyone she could and her expertise, friendship, and humor will be sorely missed.
[The past, present, and future chiefs of the Third Judicial District Public Defender Office -- Stacey Donovan, Cindy Sewell, and Maban Wright -- pose for a photo at Cindy's retirement party.]
Cindy Sewell's Irish Goodbye
by Stacey Donovan
How does one sum her up in just a few paragraphs? I have known Cindy since 1997 when she was on the interview committee for my first job out of law school. There wasn’t a lot of chit chat, she just cut right to the chase. That is still how she operates.
What I would learn over the next two decades was that one of Cindy’s best qualities is that she does not suffer fools. She can size people up immediately and has a way of talking to anyone in their language. There is no question she was too embarrassed to ask and no avenue she wasn’t willing to go down (or home she wouldn’t enter, for that matter) in the effort to get the best outcome she could for her client.
I have seen her give her so much to her clients through the years—money, cigarettes, bus tickets, rides to court, clothes to wear… but most importantly her time, her energy, her dedication, and her heart.
Watching Cindy in court was an incredible learning experience that we at the Third were so lucky to have. She could break down a case and spoon-feed it to the jury in a way that was never condescending yet was undeniably convincing. If we had a difficult client, Cindy was always the first one to try to smooth things over and it usually worked. She is the best person I’ve ever known to help you figure out a defense strategy on anything from a theft to a JL case and any case in between.
I loved working with her and learning from her. Every minute of it. She is one of my best friends who has been an incredible mentor to me as a lawyer and a mom. I am a better person for having had her in my life.
I will end this by saying that I know Cindy will hate reading this. She has never wanted attention, never wanted to be in the paper or on the news, and she certainly didn’t want any type of sendoff to celebrate the end of her incredible career, so we will let her go quietly on to spoiling her grandsons and playing in her garden. What we won’t do, can’t do, is to let her go without telling her how much she has meant to all the attorneys she’s taught and the thousands (yes, you read that number correctly) of clients she’s helped through the years. Cindy has been the soul of the Third for close to 40 years and we are all the better for it.
Cindy, you have our undying gratitude.
[Stacey Donovan is the former Chief of the Third Judicial District Public Defender Office (Topeka). She is currently a district court judge in Douglas County.]