Legal Aid is pleased to announce a new Appellate Advocacy Fellowship and welcome our inaugural fellow, David Carpman, who will join Legal Aid in September 2017. With the support of Sidley Austin LLP, this one-year Fellowship will strengthen Legal Aid’s nationally-recognized Barbara McDowell Appellate Advocacy Project. Read more →

In my remarks at this year’s Servant of Justice Awards Dinner, I highlighted Matthew Desmond’s extraordinary book, “Evicted,” winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.  I highlighted the importance of Legal Aid’s eviction prevention work and, in particular, our Housing Right to Counsel Project (also known as the Subsidized Housing Representation Project), a city-wide project we are leading but with many, many partners, including the D.C. Access to Justice Commission, Bread for the City, Legal Counsel for the Elderly, the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center, and numerous area law firms.  I expressly noted the “Expanding Access to Justice Act of 2017,” which could dramatically increase the number of tenants represented in these cases.    Read more →

Last Tuesday, Legal Aid held its 28th Annual Servant of Justice Awards Dinner. We are so grateful to our dinner co-chairs, host committee, sponsors, and honorees for making it such a memorable evening.

With over 775 guests and more than 40 sponsors, the dinner set a record for both attendance and fundraising this year! The dinner successfully raised over $1.2 million to support Legal Aid’s mission of making justice real for low-income D.C. residents.

Thank you so, so much!

“It is often in times of crisis that we find our strongest voice.”
– Vanita Gupta, 2017 Servant of Justice Awards Honoree
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On Tuesday, April 25, Legal Aid will present our highest honor – the Servant of Justice Award – to Vanita Gupta, incoming President and Chief Executive Officer of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and former head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. This award will be presented by Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Read more →

On Tuesday April 25, Legal Aid will present our highest honor – the Servant of Justice Award – to Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. This award will be presented by Paul M. Smith, Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and Vice-President of Campaign Legal Center. Read more →

The Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia is proud to announce that we will be honoring David Young of Ropes & Gray LLP with the Klepper Prize for Volunteer Excellence at this year’s Servant of Justice Awards Dinner taking place on April 25th.
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The Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia is proud to announce that we will be honoring Vanita Gupta, formerly the Head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, at this year’s Servant of Justice Awards Dinner taking place on April 25th. Read more →

Whatever else you want to say about it, 2016 has undoubtedly been an interesting year. For our client community, there have been some good developments, but also many developments that present new and even more daunting challenges. For our take on the election, please click here. You can also read more about our work over the past year in our 2016 Annual Report.

But, for purposes of this blog, I thought we would focus closer to home. As the year ends, please take a few moments to read about some of the things that happened at Legal Aid in 2016, highlighting some milestones, records, and accomplishments as individuals and as an organization. Read more →

The Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia mourns the loss of 2007 Servant of Justice Award Honoree E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr., whose storied legal career included clerking for three Supreme Court justices and later negotiating the release of prisoners from Cuba after the Bay of Pigs. E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr., was a long-time partner at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) and a stalwart supporter of access to justice for the poor. Read more →

Leading up to D.C. Pro Bono Week, Legal Aid, Bread for the City, Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center hosted a breakfast on October 13, 2016, to celebrate our pro bono partners on our Housing Right to Counsel Pilot Project.  The Project has been in operation for over a year now, matching tenants who are facing eviction with legal services and pro bono attorneys to represent them in court.

The Project focuses on eviction cases involving tenants living in subsidized housing, where tenants pay a percentage of market rent based on income and a government subsidy covers the monthly rent balance. For tenants with subsidies, the stakes in an eviction case are even higher – losing the case not only results in loss of the tenant’s home but also loss or the threatened loss of that vital housing subsidy.  Read more →