Jodi Feldman, Director of Pro Bono and Intake

Are you an attorney who has provided 50 hours or more of pro bono service in 2011? If so, the DC Courts want to thank and recognize you for your contribution!

The Chief Judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals and the D.C. Superior Court jointly announced in late October the launch of the Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll, which recognizes the vital role that private and federal government attorneys play in providing pro bono representation to those who cannot afford counsel. The Honor Roll will recognize D.C. Bar members and others authorized to perform pro bono work in the District of Columbia who provide 50 or more hours of pro bono service per year. Lawyers providing 100 hours or more of pro bono service will be recognized on the “High Honor Roll.”

In a joint letter announcing the initiative, Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals Eric Washington and Chief Judge of the D.C. Superior Court Lee Satterfield wrote “The D.C. Courts are mindful of the challenges faced by pro se litigants attempting to navigate our court system without counsel. It is for this reason that the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct call on bar members to provide fifty hours or more of pro bono service per year and why we want to acknowledge those who do by adding their names to the Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll.” The new initiative also enjoys the support of the D.C. Access to Justice Commission and the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program.

To be included in the Honor Roll, attorneys must submit a declaration to the court, which may be completed online, indicating that they have provided 50 hours or more of pro bono work in the calendar year. Applications to be on the list of honorees for 2011 are due by January 31, 2012.

Jennifer Mezey, Supervising Attorney

Ed Lazere, Executive Director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute

A recent story in the Washington Examiner intended to highlight changes the District is making to its welfare-to-work program (formally known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF) opened with the following misleading sentence: 

In a city where nearly half of residents receive some kind of government handout, District officials are working to find ways to get residents off public assistance.

This statistic and its use in this context are highly misleading if not outright deceptive, and we thought it would be worth spending a moment to explain why. 

The term “nearly half” unnecessarily overstates the actual numbers, and the term “handout” is unnecessarily provocative.  As the article goes on to say, actually, 40 percent of District residents receive TANF, Food Stamps and/or Medicaid.  These are very different programs, and to group them all together as “handouts” is loaded and irresponsible.  

The largest share of the 40 percent figure reflects Medicaid coverage, because DC has a program that covers many lower-income working families who get little or no health insurance from their job.  The District has the second lowest rate of uninsured adults (only Massachusetts’ rate is lower) and the lowest rate of uninsured children.  This is something to be proud of, not criticized.   Food stamps provide nutrition assistance to low-income households, from the elderly to the working poor.  Our food stamp participation closely matches the city’s poverty rate, so there’s no surprise there. 

Beyond that, these programs are intended to expand as the economy worsens.  DC’s current unemployment rate continues to grow three years into a recession.  In Ward 8, for instance, the unemployment rate is upwards of 30 percent.  With unemployment at the highest level in 30 years, we have many more residents without health insurance and who need assistance feeding their families.  

Finally, just eight percent of the District’s population receives TANF.  Let’s remember that these TANF recipients are among the youngest and most vulnerable District residents – poor children and their parents or other caretakers who often face many serious barriers to employment, including disability, domestic violence and limited education.  And as the District itself acknowledges, the TANF program has not adequately met the needs of the families it serves.  The city is rolling out new efforts to better identify employment barriers and provide education and training.  We are hopeful this will lead to the response we all want – TANF caseloads falling not because vulnerable families are kicked off but because they are ready to work.  Early results from the program show that families are eager to get the skills needed to get off welfare. 

Mayor Gray’s administration is trying to turn this around by offering better comprehensive and individualized services to families.  These efforts are important and should be supported.  But the justification for them should not be some vague sense that too many individuals and families rely on government “handouts.”

Jeannine Winch, Staff Attorney

Those of us who work in the area of family law know that fathers can and do play an invaluable role in the lives of their children. Yet, in relationships characterized by domestic violence, fathers are almost always the perpetrators of that violence. My colleagues and I were delighted, therefore, that the theme of the Family Court of the District of Columbia Superior Court’s Annual Conference this year was “Empowering Fathers: One Size Does Not Fit All.” 

One panel in particular, entitled “Integrating Fathers After Domestic Violence,” dealt with the delicate balance of encouraging the involvement of fathers with a history of domestic violence in their children’s lives while seeking to maintain safe, violence-free households. The discussion that ensued also explored other, related issues, such as the kind of custody and visitation that courts should award, how supervised visitation can meet the needs of this population, what follows supervised visitation, how best to make visitation safe and productive for children, and the best practices of programs aimed at making the integration of fathers effective and successful.  

The panelists recognized that abusive fathers trap not only mothers but also children in the sticky web of verbal and nonverbal behaviors that make up the abuser’s power and control over his victims. This web is typically woven long before individuals become the victims of serious threats or actual acts of violence. Accordingly, the instability of a relationship characterized by domestic violence can affect children even if they are not in the room during any particular incident. The resulting stress manifests itself not only emotionally and psychologically, but physically and developmentally as well. 

The panelists also recognized that abusive fathers often use their children – directly or indirectly – as a means of controlling the mother.  For example, the abusive father makes insincere requests for visitation with children with whom he has no relationship or even desire to get to know until the mother files for a civil protection order against him. 

Finally, the panelists highlighted the importance of supervised visitation in protecting mothers and children from physical and psychological harm, as well as the role that supervised visitation can play in fostering and nurturing positive relationships between children and their fathers. 

Overall, the Family Court’s recognition of options such as supervised visitation places a necessary emphasis on the need to successfully integrate fathers in their children’s lives in a way that may truly lead to empowering fathers. We at Legal Aid know that these are not easy issues with which to grapple, but they are ones that many judges, practitioners, and most important, families, must try to resolve, day in and day out.

David Steib, Staff Attorney

The DC Language Access Coalition, of which the Legal Aid Society of DC is a member organization, is helping to host Many Stories, One Night, an evening celebrating DC’s immigrant communities on Thursday, November 3 from 6-9pm at the Gala Theater in Columbia Heights (3333 14th Street, NW).  

The celebration will include the screening of a short documentary film entitled “Communities in Translation.” The film, created by documentarian Robert Winn, explores the impact of language barriers during emergencies, specifically focusing on the 2008 fire of an apartment building in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC.  The celebration will also include the release of preliminary findings of “The State of Language Access in D.C.,” a comprehensive report by the DC Language Access Coalition documenting immigrants’ experiences accessing programs, services, and benefits of the DC government. 

Legal Aid Housing Attorney David Steib will be one of the MCs for the evening. Please join us for an evening of food, film, and discussion.  Interpretation and child care will be provided, and we encourage you to spread the word of this event throughout the immigrant community.  The organizers are suggesting a $10 donation to attend the event, but the donation is entirely optional.  

Please come out and show your support for Language Access!

Chinh Le, Legal Director Jim Springer,

Jim Springer, Volunteer Attorney

Legal Aid volunteer attorney James Springer was one of the three lawyers featured in recent articles published by the  National Law Journal and the ABA Journal about attorneys who, after retiring from distinguished careers in private practice, dedicated their time and skills to a public interest legal services organization. Since 2005, Jim has been conducting intake and working part-time in Legal Aid’s public benefits unit, handling a variety of Social Security, Medicaid, and food stamps matters. He was previously a partner at Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP, where he handled antitrust and other litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants, with a particular emphasis on appellate practice. In June 2007, Jim was named pro bono lawyer of the year by the District of Columbia Bar.

Jodi Feldman - Director of Pro Bono & Intake Programs

Across the country this week, the contributions of pro bono attorneys are being celebrated as part of the annual National Pro Bono Celebration, sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service.  This effort is designed to showcase the great difference that pro bono lawyers make to the nation, its system of justice, its communities and, most of all, to the clients they serve.

Here at Legal Aid, we are well aware of the difference that our pro bono community makes in the lives of our neighbors in the District who live in poverty and face legal problems where the stakes are high.  These are just a few recent examples . . .

• The Court recently granted a Motion to Dismiss filed by pro bono by attorneys on behalf of a tenant being sued for eviction who was referred from Legal Aid.  The attorneys primarily argued that the landlord’s factual allegations supporting the landlord’s claim for breach of lease were too vague to support eviction.
• A mother who was being sued for contempt of a visitation order by the father of her child even though the father had failed to make arrangements to visit with the child was helped by pro bono attorneys who accepted the referral from Legal Aid.  The father’s Motion for Contempt was denied, and he was admonished by the Judge for his failure to make appropriate arrangements to visit with his child. 
• A pro bono attorney recently secured a favorable decision in a Social Security disability case referred by Legal Aid.  The client, a woman in her mid-50s, who had worked most of her adult life as a hotel housekeeper, but had to stop working due to deteriorating health, now is receiving the benefits she needs to pay for housing, food and other necessities.

As Director of Legal Aid’s Pro Bono Program, I regularly call people to tell them: “We have found a lawyer who wants to help you free of charge.”  I can actually feel through the telephone line the figurative weight that is lifted off the shoulders of someone who hears those words – people who otherwise would be on their own in court fighting for custody of their children or the right to stay in their home or at an administrative hearing to secure disability benefits after years of waiting for a hearing date and being too sick to work. 

We are fortunate in the District to have a Bar whose commitment to serving the pro bono needs of our community is unmatched anywhere in the country.  Lawyers working in the private and government sectors who take referrals from Legal Aid are true partners in our quest to make justice real in our city.  They will tell you that there is nothing quite like saving your client’s home or helping your client achieve safety and security for their family.

To those of you who already are a part of Legal Aid’s ever increasing pro bono family, we honor your contribution not just this week, but each and every day of the year. 

And to those of you who are thinking about getting involved, ask one of your colleagues who has taken on a pro bono case—the experience will be one of the most rewarding of your career, both professionally and personally.   We hope to hear from you soon!

Tim May, who was deeply committed to access to justice issues, passed away last week.  His funeral is tomorrow.  The Washington Post obituary is here.

Tim was a Legal Aid Board member for 28 years.  In 1997, he received Legal Aid’s highest honor, our Servant of Justice Award.  Tim was honored for working “tirelessly to increase the availability of pro bono legal representation” in the District of Columbia.  In addition to his service to Legal Aid, Tim served as President of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia; Executive Committee and Board member for the Council of Court Excellence; Fellow of the American Bar Foundation; and numerous other activities.  At Patton Boggs, L.L.P., Tim was a consistent and persistent advocate for pro bono.

The funeral is scheduled for October 25, 2011, at 10 am.  Our thoughts and best wishes go out to Tim’s family, friends, and loved ones.  He will be sorely missed, but the legacy of his work to help the District’s low-income community lives on.

Jack Keeney, Director, Barbara McDowell Appellate Project

For the past eight months, it has been my privilege to serve as the Director of the Barbara McDowell Appellate Advocacy Project at Legal Aid. Named after its founder who passed away much too young at age 56, the Project has a unique mission at Legal Aid: to identify and obtain appellate relief on issues of systemic importance affecting the substantial community of persons in poverty in the District. The range of issues the Project handles is broad, as the 2011 appellate docket includes matters involving tenant rights, paternity and support, attorneys’ fees, medical insurance in emergency room situations, and many others.

Surprisingly to me and probably to you too, my October appellate focus has been almost exclusively on unemployment insurance (or “UI”) benefits for eligible workers between jobs. I have filed three briefs this month, am drafting a fourth, and argued yet another in the Court of Appeals earlier this week – all about unemployment insurance. This resurgence of litigation provides us a unique opportunity to emphasize that both the District of Columbia Council and the courts have been explicit that the unemployment compensation statute should be construed liberally whenever appropriate to minimize the economic burden of unemployment. And that is as it should be. Unemployment can happen to you, to me, to anyone. This humanitarian safety net of unemployment insurance lends a helping hand to tide over the temporary dislocation and delays in a job search in a depressed economy.

Moreover, the political consensus supporting unemployment insurance is nonpartisan and near-unanimous. This is particularly true in the current economic crisis in the District, where unemployment rates hover above 10% and in some wards above 30%. Given the weak economy and jobs market, unemployment insurance is perhaps more important than ever, and our obligation as a legal services organization representing persons living in or on the brink of poverty is to make sure that individuals entitled to this critical safety-net benefit are not denied access to it. For that reason, as this blog recently reported, Legal Aid is undertaking some new initiatives this fall to help initial claimants for such assistance.

While the unusual spike in the number of UI cases on Legal Aid’s appellate docket this month is likely another consequence of the economic downturn, as even non-profit employers appeal agency awards of unemployment benefits to their former employees, the event does provide us occasion to highlight the difference that such benefits can mean for those who may find themselves out of a job and rely on unemployment insurance to make ends meet. The vast majority of these individuals typically go through the entire claims process unrepresented, even if their appeal reaches the highest court in the District. For a handful of claimants, however, that’s not the case this month, as Legal Aid is assisting them through the Barbara McDowell Appellate Advocacy Project.