EJC co-chair rated “Super Lawyer”

Equal Justice Council co-chair Andrew Jay Graham

Equal Justice Counsel co-chair Andrew Jay Graham topped the list of top attorneys in Maryland chosen by Maryland Super Lawyers magazine–for the third year in a row. An article about Graham in the magazine–”The Lawyer’s Lawyer”–quotes Maryland Legal Aid executive director  Wilhelm Joseph: “He is a lawyer’s lawyer. But he’s also a wonderful, down-to-earth guy.”

Joseph credited Graham for his work with the EJC (the private bar fundraising arm of Legal Aid): “The amount of work he does in terms of telephone calls, letters and follow-ups is almost as though he was a full-time employee of Legal Aid. He doesn’t have to do this. He does this on his own.”

Graham’s response: “Helping others is the right thing to do in a moral sense, an ethical sense. But it also makes you feel good to help other people, and that’s what you do as a lawyer.”

MS Patient Gets Reprieve from Nursing Home

Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Anne Haffner

A nursing home resident with multiple sclerosis and threatened with involuntary discharge because of an outstanding bill will be allowed to stay, Baltimore’s WBAL-TV reported on Friday.  Melanie Conaway’s attorney, Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Anne Haffner, successfully negotiated an agreement with the facility, Future Care Northpoint in Dundalk.  “We were prepared to go into a hearing and lose the hearing and be faced with a difficult decision about where Mrs. Conaway was going to be living,”  Haffner told WBAL investigative reporter Barry Simms.

But under a last-minute settlement, Conaway will remain at the nursing home.  “She said she was just so happy she would be able to stay and get her medical needs met at this nursing home,” Haffner said in the news segment. “The settlement agreement allows Mrs. Conaway to stay while we pursue a judgment against her ex-husband.”

The whole dispute focused on a $300 a month payment–alimony Conaway is supposed to receive from a divorce settlement in Tennessee. The funds are considered income and must be used for her nursing home stay, Simms reported.

Legal Aid Assists Needy Patient Facing Nursing Home Eviction

Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Anne Haffner

Long Term Care Assistant Project staff attorney Anne Haffner appeared on Baltimore’s WBAL-TV yesterday evening in a news segment about a client threatened with involuntary discharge from a nursing home. “This is a really tragic case,” Anne said on camera about her client, a 53-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis who could get kicked out over an outstanding $2500 bill. The good news: After talking with WBAL investigative reporter Barry Simms, the nursing home agreed to let the woman stay as Anne tries to get a judgment against the client’s ex-husband, who stopped paying $300 a month alimony (that was turned over to the nursing home).