Harvard Legal Aid Bureau‘s Eloise Lawrence reflects on the drop in foreclosure eviction cases in a recent Boston Business Journal article.
Clinical and Pro Bono Programs
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[L-R] Cmdr. Mike Adams LL.M. ’13, Joshua Fiveson ’14, Jordi Torres ’13, and Lee Hiromoto ’13
Lena Silver
In addition to volunteering with the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP) her 1L year, Lena has worked at least 20 hours per week at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau during her 2L and 3L years. By transforming the Bureau’s weekly housing eviction community education program, she had a great impact on improving the services to pro se litigants, 95% of whom have no representation in housing court.
Lena was also awarded pro bono hours for her 1L summer at the Public Counsel Law Center; her 2L summer at both the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Western Center on Law and Poverty; and her volunteer work at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law working on the Ensuring Success in Schools Act. She will use her HLS Public Service Venture Fund Fellowship to work at the Shriver Center after graduation.
The Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award is granted each year in honor of Professor Andrew Kaufman who has been instrumental in creating and supporting the Pro Bono Service Program at HLS. The J.D. student in the graduating class who performs the highest number of pro bono service hours receives the award and an honorarium. The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs annually determines the winner based on records of total completed pro bono hours submitted by students.
David Barber (center) with Ethics Chair Jim Peck and Chapter President Kathleen Burke
Throughout Dave’s four semesters of intense clinical work he has impressed me as a dedicated and thoughtful student who makes the extra effort to be both effective and ethically sound in representing his clients. He has demonstrated superb legal abilities, personal qualities and an understanding and sensitivity to ethical issues as they arise in his cases and in the office. He has taken on challenging cases and worked extremely hard and passionately on behalf of his clients. Dave works very hard not only to be effective in his work, but also to be thoughtful and compassionate. He accomplishes this by trying to consider honestly and explicitly the many competing concerns and interests involved with each client, with himself, and with the community involved.”
According to The Chapter, the award was created “to recognize and encourage the ethical practice of law at the earliest stages of a young lawyer’s professional career, and at the same time to shine a spotlight on ethics more generally, demonstrating that the legal community values lawyers who are guided by ethical principles. The award, which includes a $1,000 scholarship, is given to twelve students, one from each of the participating local law schools, who have demonstrated an early commitment to ethics through work in clinical programs representing their first real clients.”
The Northeast Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel held the ninth annual Law Student Ethics Awards dinner on April 12, 2013 at the Union Club in Boston. Former U.S. Congressman Barney Frank gave the keynote address.
Article written by HLS student Lerae Kroon
After months of advocacy, HLAB student attorney Chris Suenram’s hard work paid off. He delivered a baby to his client.
Suenram’s advocacy reunited Jasmine* with her baby girl after two-and-a-half months apart. Domestic violence forced Jasmine from the home she shared with her husband and his family.
Jasmine and her husband were married overseas through an arranged marriage. They came to Massachusetts with their baby and moved in with his family. She almost immediately became the target of abuse from her husband and his relatives. Jasmine was essentially a slave in the home — she was confined to the house, had no keys, and was not allowed to call her family overseas or do anything without permission. The family believes female children are “liabilities” and subjected Jasmine to verbal abuse and physical violence.
When Jasmine contacted HLAB, she was staying in a shelter. She spoke very little English and had no family or friends in Massachusetts. When she fled, her husband prevented her from taking the baby and also did not allow her any further contact.
Once HLAB took her case Suenram got right to work. With the support of his third-year mentor and his supervising attorney, he crafted a legal strategy to meet her immediate goal of getting her baby back.
One step was the hearing for temporary custody at the Probate and Family Court, where Suenram argued for Jasmine to be given full custody of her baby. He prevailed and mother and daughter were reunited. “The social worker has told me that the transition has gone incredibly well,” said Suenram.
The power disparities in Jasmine’s case are prevalent among clients in HLAB’s Family Law practice. Many HLAB clients are victims of domestic violence, and face financial and emotional obstacles.
“It’s not exaggerating to say that Jasmine could not have obtained this result without legal assistance,” said Suenram. “It’s pretty amazing what she has been able to achieve in terms of standing up for herself and finding people who were able to help her. She still has a long road ahead, but I am confident that she will be able to achieve a good life for herself and her children.”
*Not her real name
Suenram (’14)
The Gary Bellow Public Service Award was created in 2001 to recognize excellence in public interest work at HLS and to honor Professor Bellow (’60). The awards are given annually by the student body of Harvard Law School to a student and alumnus/a for their commitment to social justice.
The three student finalists for the 2013 Gary Bellow Public Service Award are all HLS clinical students. Their involvement spans a range of HLS clinics and SPOs.
Crystal Redd: Prison Legal Assistance Project, Harvard Defenders, The Mississippi Delta Project, Post-Foreclosure Eviction Defense Clinic, Employment Law Clinic, and Criminal Justice Institute.
Lara Berlin: International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Mediation Program.
Stephanie Davidson: Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.
Read more about finalists’ work and vote for student and alumnae candidates by March 27th.
Gary Bellow was the founder and former faculty director of Harvard Law School’s Clinical Programs, and a pioneering public interest lawyer. His career was dedicated to providing legal services to the poor and to teaching law students practical skills. Commenting about his time from 1962-1965, when he was serving as deputy director of the Legal Aid Agency for the District of Columbia, and when he and his colleagues faced an enormous caseload with no job training, Professor Bellow told the Harvard Law Bulletin, “We discovered the best legal education America had to offer didn’t teach us how to get someone out of a cell block.”
Professor Bellow co-founded the WilmerHale Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, the school’s major legal clinic, located in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.
Recommended by one of our readers:
This week’s Spare Change highlights Project No One Leaves, a collective founded in 2008 by Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) members David E. Haller (JD ’09) and Nicholas J. Hartigan (JD ’09) to “empower citizens living in foreclosed properties to protect their homes and communities through grassroots organizing, legal education, and civic engagement”.
In related news, the Harvard Crimson profiles Joseph P. Kennedy III (JD ’09) and discusses his contribution to Project No One Leaves during his time at HLAB.
Happy reading!
There’s always an event (or two or three) to attend at HLS. A few clinical events are highlighted below but for a complete listing of HLS events, please visit the HLS calendar.
Harvard Legal Aid Bureau 1L Info Session
Tue, Mar 6, 6–7:30pm
Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, 23 Everett Street
Stop by the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) – the nation’s oldest student legal services organization – to learn more about the application process, the types of cases handled by HLAB, and the HLAB community.
Contesting Childhood: When Law and Politics Go to School
Thu, Mar 8, 12–1pm
WCC 4133
Harvard Law School SJD Candidate Lisa Kelly discusses mandatory schooling in North America and how the seeds of “family privacy” were sewn – and retroactively invented – in response to the shifting relationship between family and state.
Hosted by the Child Advocacy Program.
HLS Advocates for Education Conference – Closing the School to Prison Pipeline: Redirecting our Future
Thu, Mar 8, 9am–6pm
WCC, Milstein East ABC
The HLS Advocates for Education Conference will take a multidisciplinary approach to evaluating the issues that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline while discussing potential solutions. Professor James Forman Jr. of Yale Law School will be the keynote speaker.
Co-sponsors include Child and Youth Advocates (CYA), Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP), Harvard Defenders, La Alianza, Black Law Students Associations (BLSA), Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (CRCL), Women’s Law Association (WLA), and Harvard Mississippi Delta Project.
A few news items from the Harvard Law School clinical world…
A Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) student is in the news for successfully arguing that a loan servicer made mistakes when it foreclosed on his client. Now, “The highest court in Massachusetts is poised to rule as soon as this month on a foreclosure case that could lead to a surge in claims from home owners seeking to overturn seizures.” (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Speaking of HLAB, take a tour of their offices. (The Record)
Two clients of Recording Artists Project, a student practice organization providing pro bono legal assistance on music business matters, contributed to Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy-winning album The Mosaic Project. (RAP blog)
This past January, three students from the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinic traveled to Chile to investigate the Ministry of Justice’s neighborhood multi-door courthouse pilot program. (HLS website)
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