It is with deep sadness that Community Legal Aid shares news of the passing of our friend and colleague, John Petit, Managing Attorney in the Canton office.
John dedicated his life and career to helping others. He joined Community Legal Aid in 2006 as a staff attorney after serving as an attorney for multiple child support agencies, as an assistant prosecutor, in private practice, and (immediately before joining legal aid) as an attorney with the Jesuits of Michigan and Ohio, where he provided legal services to low-income and homeless clients.
The depth and breadth of John's knowledge and experience in many areas of the law and his proven skills as an attorney led to his quick promotion in 2007 to Supervising Attorney of the HelpLine, where he managed the intake process for Community Legal Aid. In 2009, he was promoted again, to Managing Attorney for the Family Law Team. Over the next two years, he would add management of the Consumer Law and Housing Law teams to his portfolio. Throughout all this time, John developed extraordinary and impactful relationships with many leaders and partners throughout Community Legal Aid’s eight-county service region. Of the many partnerships John developed, his work with the Stark County Fatherhood Coalition had a special place in his heart. Hearing the stories of countless fathers unable to see their children led John to develop an innovative model for providing legal representation to unwed fathers, especially Black fathers, to help them establish parenting time with their children. Beyond the individual and local impact his work had, his efforts also helped inspire change in these systems statewide.
In 2020, John became the Managing Attorney of the Neighborhood Law Project, where he managed Community Legal Aid's community economic development work. Among his many accomplishments with the project, John led his team to take on delinquent property owners of large, multi-unit complexes by organizing and guiding tenants to identify and document unsafe and unhealthy living conditions. He worked with grassroots advocates and property owners to get those issues resolved.
“John was a real lawyer's lawyer,” said Executive Director Steven McGarrity. “As a lawyer, he feared nothing and no one. If a colleague found themselves in over their head, John always stepped in to mentor and co-counsel. When a particularly tough case would come in, John would be the first to volunteer to take it on. If a tenant walked into the office an hour before an eviction hearing, he would drop everything and head over to Municipal Court to try and save the client’s home. His dedication and leadership were nothing short of inspiring.”
In addition to the thousands of clients John helped, his legacy will live on through the many young attorneys and paralegals John mentored and trained, both within Community Legal Aid and more broadly throughout the region and state.
Speaking of Community Legal Aid’s clients, John once said, “If we don’t help them, nobody will. You feel a sense of responsibility and appreciation that you can have a major impact.”
On December 4, 2024, Community Legal Aid’s Board of Trustees honored the major impact John has had on the staff, clients, and community by naming the organization’s Canton office the John M. Petit Legal Advocacy Center.
“This space will forever serve as a testament to John’s legacy, and to the indelible mark his work left on our community,” McGarrity said.
The staff at Community Legal Aid express heartfelt condolences to John’s wife, sister, extended family, friends, and clients at this difficult time.
Click here for John's obituary.