Mr. Rubinson is active in community affairs

• Habitat for Humanity

For years, Mr. Rubinson has used his vacation time to help build homes for the needy with Habitat for Humanity all over the United States and the world, including building 21 homes in a single week in Watts/Willowbrook in 1995. He has also built in numerous other locations, including Washington, D.C., Miami, Georgia, and the Phillippines.

Volunteering with Habitat has been a most rewarding and meaningful experience, in several ways. Of course it is gratifying to help provide a home for solid working people who simply cannot afford one on their own. But it is also a wonderful feeling to work side-by-side with and get to know the other volunteers who travel to the site from around the world in order to reach out to others, to labor to improve the housing conditions and quality of life of the new homeowners. Volunteers have never met the homeowners-to-be before the first day of work commences, and few volunteers ever see the homeowners again after the week is over and the house is built, but it does not matter. The feeling of making a difference in the world, of giving of oneself in order to help others live a more dignified life, remains.

• Boyle Heights College Institute

In 1993, Mr. Rubinson became involved with the Boyle Heights College Institute. The Institute is a nonprofit, community-based organization located in Boyle Heights, just east of downtown Los Angeles. Its mission is to help provide the necessary support - academic, parental, emotional, and financial - for young people living in that community to begin enjoying academic success and get on the track leading to college.

The program consists of three primary components. First is the afterschool program, in which a curriculum originally designed by UCLA Education Department educators and graduate students, but tailored over the years to our students' particular needs, is taught to our third, fourth, and fifth graders twice per week for two hours. The program soon expanded, and began to offer our middle school and high school students afterschool academic support as well. Second is a mentoring program, in which each student is matched with a volunteer professional (at least a college graduate) in a Big Brother/Big Sister-style relationship. Finally, there is a parenting component to the program, where our students' parents are offered regular classes, workshops, seminars, and lectures on various topics relevant to successfully raising their children.

Tom's involvement with the group began when he volunteered to be a mentor. He was matched with a painfully shy fourth grader, a nine year-old whose academic and social development was being retarded by a somewhat chaotic and inconsistent family life characterized by rotating father figures, multiple siblings, and a well-intentioned but overwhelmed mother. The result was that he received little attention, guidance, or structure.

This was a boy who needed a mentor, and for the next four years he and Tom built a relationship, spending time together several times per month. Gradually, the young man began to come out of his shell, to communicate, and to trust. It was truly gratifying for Tom to see him start to blossom, to become more confident, and ultimately to improve his school performance. The key was his beginning to feel that somebody actually cared about him and provided him consistent support and some sense of structure in life.

Tom began to become more involved with the mentoring program as a whole. He volunteered to lead larger groups of youngsters on hikes, and on one occasion, with the help of several other mentors and staff, took a group of approximately 25 or 30 children on their first overnight camping trip.

Tom's activity with the mentor program in those first few years piqued his interest in becoming more involved with the organization from a management perspective. He was able to secure a position on the Board of Directors in 1995, and in 1997 was elected Vice-Chairman of the Board.   It has not been an easy road, as at times the organization has had to battle to maintain financial stability and significant staff turnover. On two occasions Tom chaired a subcommittee charged with hiring a new Executive Director for the Institute, an honor and a challenge that he found particularly rewarding, especially given the importance of not only the result of the search but also of ensuring that the parents and other community members felt that they had a voice in the process so as to validate the results in the community. While on the Board Mr. Rubinson has been heavily involved in fundraising efforts.   

In 2001 the Institute formed an Advisory Board of Directors. Due to the length of his tenure on the Board and the type of support he felt he could best offer at that juncture, he elected to sit on the Advisory Board. There he assumed more general oversight responsibilities.

• Criminal Justice Section, Los Angeles County Bar Association

In 2001, Mr. Rubinson was asked by the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section to join that prestigious Committee. He has been an active member ever since.

The Section is unique in that it is the largest Bar organization that includes prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, all together in one room, working together to reach our shared goals for the profession. The Section seeks to promote education of the criminal law bar through a number of full-day and half-day programs throughout the year, and is a leader in taking positions on legislative proposals relating to criminal law. It also presents its year-end Criminal Justice Awards Dinner, at which the Judge of the Year, Prosecutor of the Year, Defense Attorney of the Year, and Career Achievement Awards are handed out. This annual event usually attracts at least 300 leading members of the criminal justice community. The Executive Committee of the Section is responsible for providing all of the programming, both educational and social, as well as the year-end dinner.

In 2006, Mr. Rubinson was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Criminal Justice Section.   At the outset of that year, he prepared an ambitious agenda for the Committee, and, with his leadership, the Committee met or surpassed each one. Included among the innovations was a first-ever, purely social "Meet the Judges" event, at which attorneys could interact and socialize with members of the bench in a friendly and relaxed environment, one free of the stresses of the courtroom. Also, Mr. Rubinson led the production of a new-style evening MCLE workshop, held in a restaurant, in which experts from all over the state discussed the scientific basis for fingerprint and firearms evidence, in a debate format. The year-end Awards Dinner was also a huge success.