Clearwater lawyers step up to the plate to help at-risk boys: Protecting rights, pursuing justice, promoting professionalism.

Truth be known, the folks at Kings Highway Elementary in Clearwater were skeptical when lawyer Leonard Milcowitz first talked up big plans for a program for at-risk boys at a school where more than half of the students live in poverty.

What gave his after-school program pizzazz, the lawyer said in his sales pitch, was the lure of baseball, taught by former pro players.

As Arthurene Williams, behavior specialist at 'the school, put it: Tm listening to this lawyer lay all this out, and I'm looking at him and thinking about what my mom always said, 'If it's too good to be true, it usually is."'

But she kept listening, as Milcowitz told her all about the nonprofit corporation called Extra Innings Youth Foundation, Inc., he'd created with his law partner, Ed Lyons.

They promised to buy state-of-the-art computers and multicultural textbooks, deliver snacks, hire certified teachers to provide one-on-one tutoring to help the boys with homework after school five days a week.

They would purchase personalized equipment bags bulging with hat, uniform, glove, and shoes for each boy who earned the honor to play ball on the Extra Innings team.

They'd finance field trips to places the boys had never been before, like the nutcracker Ballet at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

Teacher StePhan Lane recalled: "My honest impression when Mrs. Williams first told me how these lawyers would buy six lap-top computers to use in the classroom, I'm thinking, 'Wow! This would be great!' But in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, I'll get a memo tomorrow that we can't have this program and we'll never hear from them again."

The skeptics are now true believers. The lawyers have made good on their promises and beyond.

Now in its second year, the Extra Innings, program graduated 14 boys last year, now serves 30 boys, and has expanded to Sandy Lane Elementary in Pinellas County, too.

When the kids needed their own baseball field and their own portable classroom at Kings Highway Elementary, the law partners forked over the bucks for that, too. The whole idea, the lawyers explained, is to help prevent drop-outs by igniting young boys' can-do spirit so they'll stay in school until high school graduation day and go on to do something positive with their lives.

"Ed and I truly care about the wellbeing of children in the world. We can't feed everyone. But we are committed to take care of the children in our community that we live in," Milcowitz said. "It is our belief that it is the...