Legal Aid Executive Director Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr.

Maryland Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr. was selected as an “Influential Marylander” by the Daily Record and will be honored March 29 at an event in Hunt Valley.

Joseph, who has led Legal Aid since 1997 and grown it into one of the largest legal services programs in the U.S., also received the award in 2008.

For a complete list of this year’s honorees, click here.

These questions and others are answered in the new edition of the Guardianship Handbook .

The Law & Health Care Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and the Delivery of Legal Services Section Council of the Maryland State Bar Assoc. have published a guide to help both laypeople and attorneys navigate adult guardianship in Maryland. Guardianship and Its Alternatives: A Handbook on Maryland Law was originally written by UM Carey Law Professor Joan O’Sullivan, a champion for the legal rights of the elderly, who passed away in 2007.

The 2011 Edition was revised and updated by Virginia Rowthorn, managing director of the Law & Health Care Program, and Ellen Callegary, a prominent elder law and disability lawyer in Maryland.

Callegary, a 1978 graduate of UM Carey Law and a member of the Alumni Board, is a founding partner of the Baltimore law firm of Callegary & Steedman, P.A and has a long history of involvement in disability and elderly issues. During her ten years as an assistant attorney general for Maryland, she worked directly with two attorneys general advising state agencies on matters related to the rights of persons with disabilities and serving as principal counsel for the Department of Juvenile Services. She also serves as an adjunct professor of law at UM Carey Law, where she most recently taught the Civil Right of Persons with Disabilities Seminar.

Rowthorn, who has worked for DLA Piper and the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and served as a Legislative Assistant on the US Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, teaches the Health Law Workshop and directs the Health Law Externship Program.

The impetus for the updated handbook was various changes in guardianship law over the last two decades and a realization by elder law and disability lawyers on the Delivery of Legal Services Section Council that there is a great need for practical, easy-to-read advice regarding guardianship for elderly and disabled Maryland residents.

Suzanne Sangree, chief solicitor at the Baltimore City Department of Law, and past chair of the Delivery of Legal Services Section Council, and Yoanna Moisides, Assistant Director of Advocacy for Training and Pro Bono at Maryland Legal Aid and current chair of the section council, also wanted a handbook that set forth a comprehensive list of alternatives to the formal guardianship process, a time-consuming and sweeping process that may not always be necessary to address a number of problems associated with lack of decision-making capacity.

Supported by funds from the Law & Health Care Program, the Rueben Shiling Mental Health Law Fund, the Dr. Richard H. Heller Fund, and the Maryland Bar Foundation, the handbook is available free of charge to attorneys and laypeople throughout the state. All or portions of the handbook can be duplicated and distributed without charge with proper attribution to the UM Carey Law’s Law & Health Care Program and the Maryland State Bar Association.

Katie Cox, a Maryland Legal Aid paralegal who is coordinating the event, says demand for help is often a reflection of the economy.

“I’d say the thing we see most often is family law cases – people going through divorces or custody. We also see now an increase in unemployment cases.”

Volunteer attorneys will deal with questions about landlord/tenant issues, wills and advance directives, bankruptcy, workers’ compensation, immigration, Social Security disability and serious traffic offenses, Cox says. Many problems, she adds, can be resolved outside the courtroom.

“When someone comes in, they might not necessarily need a lawyer. It might not be a legal problem, but they’re still not sure about what to do. We can refer them to the proper agencies.”

Those who attend, Cox says, should bring documents related to their questions.

Maryland Legal Aid and the Bar Association of Frederick County’s Pro Bono and Access to Legal Services Committee are sponsoring the clinic. More than 100 people showed up at a similar event in July.

The clinic will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. at Maryland Legal Aid, 22 S. Market St.

To hear an audio version, click here.

Of this amount, $27.7 million was in the form of new federal revenue, the report found. The state appropriation for MLAC in FY11 was $9.5 million.

“This report provides proof that civil legal aid is a sound investment of the Commonwealth’s resources, especially during these difficult economic times,” said Lonnie Powers, executive director of MLAC, the largest funding source for civil legal aid in the Commonwealth. “In addition to being a last-resort for low-income people with critical legal problems, legal aid provides a significant economic boost that has a long-lasting, positive impact on society as a whole.”

In addition to new federal revenue, MLAC estimates the work of its grantees saved the Commonwealth millions in costly social services by keeping clients out of the emergency shelter system, courts and emergency rooms. The data was reported to MLAC by the 16 legal aid programs it funds in the Commonwealth.

Powers said the FY11 report, echoing findings of previous years’ reports, supports MLAC’s position that after several years of level funding from the state, it is time for a modest increase for civil legal aid in FY13. “We understand the budget crunch continues, but the data show that legal aid programs are worth an increased investment by the Commonwealth,” Powers said.

Among the key findings were:

•    New federal revenue brought to the Commonwealth included $8.7 million in retroactive payments to first-year SSI beneficiaries, more than $500,000 in Medicare appeals funding and $9.7 million in additional federal unemployment benefits.
•    Approximately $10.4 million in additional benefits were secured for low-income residents through unemployment insurance, housing stabilization, utility arrearage forgiveness and child support orders.
•    Legal aid programs generated savings of approximately $15.1 million for the Commonwealth in preventing homelessness and assistance to domestic violence victims.

The full report is available at http://www.mlac.org/research.html.

Volunteer attorneys  will provide individual  free consultations in  the areas of family law, landlord/tenant, wills & advance directives, bankruptcy, workers’ compensation, foreclosure, business law, employment, real estate, Social Security disability, consumer, immigration, criminal expungements, government benefits, and serious traffic and MVA issues.

There is no charge to attend and registration is not required. Be sure to bring any relevant documents with you.  For more information, call 301-694-7414 or email nshore@mdlab.org.

Location:

Maryland Legal Aid,  Suite 11
22 South Market Street
Frederick , MD 21701

In its 7-0 decision, the Court of Appeals noted a defendant at a bail hearing before a district commissioner stands a similar chance to being incarcerated as he or she does at a trial before a judge, which already carries the statutory and constitutional right to counsel.

“[W]henever a Commissioner determines to set bail, the defendant stands a good chance of losing his or her liberty, even if only for a brief time,” Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “Furthermore, the likelihood that the commissioner will give full and fair consideration to all facts relevant to the bail determination can only be enhanced by the presence of counsel.”

By a 5-2 vote, the high court added that the right of defendants to counsel at bail hearings was to take effect immediately. In so ruling, the court rejected a request from the state public defender’s office for a stay so that it could secure the necessary state funding and additional personnel to provide legal representation at bail hearings.

“One person who died waiting was Dexter E. Penny of District Heights, Md., who applied for disability benefits in February 2009 after being diagnosed with colon cancer,” the article said. “His initial application was denied. Then his first appeal was denied on the grounds that he didn’t provide enough medical records.

“Mr. Penny, a mason, approached the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau for help a year after his first application. He couldn’t understand why terminal cancer wouldn’t qualify him for benefits, says his sister, Diane Penny.

“Kate Lang, his lawyer, called four hospitals seeking additional records. Mr. Penny’s condition worsened. By September 2010, he was told he had stage-four cancer. Mr. Penny, 50 years old, was nearly broke and dying in the hospital and the agency wanted more accurate documentation to determine whether he was able to work, according to his sister.

“On Dec. 15, 2010, the agency informed him by letter that he had been granted benefits. Mr. Penny had died nine days earlier. The letter arrived the day of his funeral. On Jan. 31, the government sent him another letter saying his benefits had been revoked because he hadn’t responded to the agency’s questions in a timely manner.”

To download the brochure, click here: Bankruptcybrochure1211.

At the same time, the agency, like similar organizations across the country, is grappling with funding cuts that make it harder to help the increasing number of people in need of assistance in civil cases.

For example, Prince George’s, the second-most-populous jurisdiction in the state, has endured more foreclosures than any other in Maryland. And the economic downturn has brought Legal Aid prospective clients that the organization would not have seen 10 years ago.

“I review a lot of the intakes, and we’re getting people from Potomac calling us,” [said Legal Aid supervising attorney Teresa Cooke]. “But these individuals are now actually financially eligible for our services.”

To read the article, click here.

From the article:

Each year, millions of non-criminal cases in the United States are heard in civil court – cases involving child custody battles, housing evictions and other issues, including the case of Juliana Holmes in Baltimore, Maryland. Holmes’ estranged husband took away their three children when she was living in another state – and she could not afford a lawyer to get them back.

“He just took them out of the state of North Carolina so I moved here to follow my kids,” said Holmes.

Holmes eventually got joint custody of her children with the help of a private organization called Maryland Legal Aid, which provided her with a lawyer at no cost.

Trish Cochran was her attorney. She’s among a growing number of lawyers and judges who think the right to an attorney, for critical civil cases such as these, should be a basic legal right in the United States. Right now, it is not.

“People have a constitutional right to their children; a right to have just some place to live; to have access to the resources that are available. It’s just that people don’t always have the savvy [knowledge] to get the resources that are there for them,” said Cochran.

To read the entire article and watch the video, click here.