Legal Aid to host Pro Bono Day in Frederick

Pro Bono Day–a free legal clinic–will be held January 24,  from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Midwestern Maryland office of Legal Aid, 22 S. Market Street in Frederick.

Volunteer attorneys will provide individual  free legal consultations in  the areas of family law, landlord/tenant, wills & advance directives, bankruptcy, workers compensation, foreclosures, business law, employment, real estate, tax law, 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. Bring any relevant documents with you. For more information call 301-694-7414 or email chief attorney Nina Shore at nshore@mdlab.org.

Pro Bono Day is sponsored by the Bar Association of Frederick County in partnership with Maryland Legal Aid. It is funded in part by a grant from the Bar Association of Frederick County Justice for All Fund, a component fund of the Community Foundation of Frederick County.

Attorney General Doug Gansler presents Legal Aid with $3.6 million from national foreclosure settlement

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler presented Legal Aid with a check for $3.6 million at a press conference yesterday in the Baltimore office. The money originated from the $26 billion National Mortgage Settlement. Five other legal aid programs also received checks: Civil Justice ($1.4 million), the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service ($930,000), the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center ($600,000), the Pro Bono Resource Center ($565,000) and the Public Justice Center ($510,000).

“The people being recognized today do God’s work,” Gansler (right in photo, along with Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm Joseph and Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development Carol Gilbert, left) said at the press conference yesterday. “This money will help more than 10,000 families keep their homes, not be victims of predatory lending and get thrown out of their homes. People need housing counselors and lawyers to navigate the deal, so we’re giving more than $7 million to these six organizations.”

“This is a very important occasion and I see lots of smiles,” Joseph said. “Usually, people in this lobby aren’t smiling, because they have very serious legal issues. We appreciate the attorney general for his leadership in a national role in forging the national foreclosure settlement. Because of him, Maryland ended up with a substantial settlement.”

Legal aid benefits all Marylanders

From an op-ed in today’s Baltimore Sun by Maryland Legal Aid board member Erek Barron:

This just in: Maryland civil legal service programs not only benefit the poor but also save the state millions per year. Legal assistance to low-income Marylanders is a significant economic boost to the state and benefits more than just those receiving aid, according to a report just released by the Maryland Judiciary’s Access to Justice Commission.

Legal services mean a lot more than just helping people without means get access to the courts. For example, these services help low-income residents receive the government benefits to which they are entitled; prevent homelessness by avoiding eviction; and help protect against domestic violence.

In 2012, Maryland legal service programs preserved or found housing for almost 1,000 individuals and helped obtain 2,825 civil protective orders for clients. But the economic impact of legal services for the poor went far beyond the families helped, creating $190 million in total economic impact, including $12.6 million in economic stimulus to the state, $3.7 million in state expenditures saved, and $882,096 in tax revenue.

Economic impact studies in a number of other states have reported similar results, potentially changing the way these services will be viewed going forward. For example, a 2011 study of Virginia legal aid programs found a $5.27 return for every dollar invested. Another study, released last month, found that legal aid programs in Ohio netted a $109 million total economic impact to the state. The provision of civil legal services for the indigent can no longer be seen simply as a “feel good” initiative but also as an important economic tool.

To read the entire column, click here (behind a pay wall).

Annapolis Housing Authority to honor Legal Aid

The Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis will honor Maryland Legal Aid chief attorney Anita Bailey (left) and her staff at the Anne Arundel Co. office later this month with its Martha Wood Leadership Award.

“Your advocacy on behalf of clients . . . [is] only superseded by your willingness to work in partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis to insure that the constitutional rights of your clients are protected and respected,” wrote HACA chief of staff Joseph S. Johnson.

The award will be given by Mayor Joshua C. Cohen at the regular meeting of the Annapolis City Council at City Hall.

Legal Aid demands greater access to migrant workers

The Voice of America interviewed Maryland Legal Aid staffers Nora Rivero and Nathaniel Norton for a story about the problems they face reaching out to migrant farmworkers.

“Norton and Rivero say farm owners systematically intimidate them from doing their outreach to migrant workers,” said VOA reporter Mana Rabiee. “One farmer brandished a baseball bat at Rivero, they say, adding that another grower and his son threatened to shoot Norton.

“’[They] got out of their trucks and came up to the window started yelling very angry,’ Norton said. ‘One of the things the grower was yelling was, “You could be thieves. I’ve got the right to shoot people on my property.”

“Across the United States, outreach workers who deal with migrant farmworkers have similar stories of intimidation by growers. They say it’s designed to keep activists away from the poor farmworkers the activists hope to help.”

To see the segment and read the entire article, click here.

Legal Aid helps solve Howard Co. rental dispute involving Rottweiler

Metropolitan Maryland office staff attorney Sara Wilkinson

Maryland Legal Aid helped Hazel Sanders,  70 years old and disabled,  and her Rottweiler service dog obtain an affordable apartment after the management company agreed to drop objections based on the Maryland Court of Appeals decision earlier this year defining pit bulls as inherently dangerous, the Baltimore Sun reported today.

“Sanders reached agreement in mediation last week through the Howard County Office of Human Rights, where she had filed a complaint against Equity Management II for refusing to make an exception to its no-pets policy for a service dog, as federal law requires,” the article said.

“Sara C. Wilkinson, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Bureau Inc., who represented Sanders, said the issue of the Court of Appeals case never came up in the four- to five-hour mediation session last Thursday at the Howard County Office of Human Rights, in Columbia,” the report said.

To read the article (behind a pay wall), click here.

Legal Aid honored by Annapolis Housing Authority

Last night, the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis board of directors adopted three “Resolutions of Appreciation” recognizing Maryland Legal Aid staff attorneys Margaret Leonard and Amy Siegel, and Anne Arundel office chief attorney Anita Bailey, individually, and the Anne Arundel County office of Maryland Legal Aid in general, for its “dedicated advocacy and legal services on behalf of the residents of the public housing community”. . . and to “express their sincere appreciation . . .for its commitment and services to the betterment of the lives of the citizens of the City of Annapolis.”

Leonard, Siegel and Bailey were presented with signed and sealed certificates of appreciation by HACA’s executive director Vince Leggett, and HACA’s Board Chairman, Carl Snowden (also the Director of Civil Rights for Maryland’s Office of the Attorney General).

“In presenting the certificates, Mr. Snowden noted that while many might assume that the relationship between HACA and Legal Aid was primarily adversarial, he acknowledged that, to the contrary, HACA enjoys a cooperative relationship with Legal Aid and that Legal Aid has made HACA a better organization through their advocacy in making sure that HACA adheres to federal regulations and other laws in the administration of their programs,” Bailey  said. “To say the least, we were very honored by this recognition.”

Organizations create legal safety net for the homeless in Frederick Co.

For homeless Frederick County residents, perseverance and community support are key to navigating the legal system, according to advocates, the Frederick News-Post reported today.

“Attorneys provide free or low-cost legal advice to homeless families in cases ranging from minor criminal charges, such as panhandling or loitering, to bad debt and landlord-tenant disputes, which may have led to their becoming homeless,” the article said.

“When it comes to civil cases, several organizations in the county provide services, including the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service, the Frederick County Bar Association and the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau,” the article continued.

“The Legal Aid Bureau served 1,871 people in Frederick County in 2011, and an additional 69,305 people throughout the state.

“Alecia Frisby [above], a staff attorney at Legal Aid, said the office also refers about 20 cases each month that can’t be handled by her office to the bar association for assistance.

“When it comes to issues in court — criminal or civil — the homeless face more hurdles than other residents, dealing with problems such as how to receive notices from the court without an address or maintaining documents that can help their cases without a place to store paperwork.

“While most people can establish mailing addresses, Frisby said, phone access is a far greater challenge. In cases that move quickly — such as administrative agency appeals and those in District Court — she sometimes needs to ask clients without phones to return to the office several times a day, just in case they need to follow up on something.

“The Legal Aid Bureau tries to be flexible to help with the current needs of their clients, she said. In recent years, they have added weekly clinics that address unemployment and bankruptcy issues.

“‘I think we do the best we can. We’re constantly evolving. We’re always trying to determine what are the needs of our client base and how can we respond,’ Frisby said.”

To read the entire article, click here.

Migrant farmworkers’ advocates file complaint with UN

From the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — Caitlin Berberich, managing attorney with the Southern Migrant Legal Services, a project of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, said that when paralegals visit migrant camps, they are almost always ordered to leave by the landowners — sometimes with threats of police calls or worse. “One grower” in Arkansas, she said, chased “after our interns and our paralegals carrying a chainsaw.” The blade was not turned on, but the “Texas Chain Saw Massacre”moment left an impression.

“We regularly had employers follow them off, escort them off in their cars,” Berberich said of her legal team. “A couple growers we know are notorious for preventing us from having access.” One camp, she explained, has a security detail, its main purpose apparently to escort Berberich’s paralegals off the property.

Berberich’s experiences are not unfamiliar to lawyers, health care workers, and community advocates who have attempted to oversee migrant camps and check in on the tomato pickers, sheep herders, and other migrant workers across the U.S., from eastern Maryland to remote corners of Colorado to whole swaths of the deep South. Often these advocates provide the only ties the migrant workers have to local communities and address vital issues like wage theft and basic health needs like HIV testing.

On Thursday, a coalition of 28 nonprofit legal and social service organizations filed a complaint with the United Nations, alleging that migrant workers have been unlawfully denied access to assistance. The complaint, organized by Maryland Legal Aid with help from the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law, argues that these barriers amount to a violation of human rights law.

To read the entire article, click here.

Legal Aid files complaint with U.N. about migrant camp access

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2012—A coalition of 28 non-profit legal and social services organizations submitted a complaint today to the U.N. arguing that the practice of denying farmworkers the right to have visitors and social services providers the right to meaningful access to migrant farmworker labor camps is a violation of human rights law.

Maryland Legal Aid, with technical assistance provided by Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law, spearheaded the complaint submitted to Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, by legal services, healthcare, workers’ rights, anti-trafficking organizations, and other community service programs that serve migrant farmworkers, representing all 50 states.

“This is the first time in history that these types of organizations have  joined together to submit a complaint  to a U.N. Special Procedure,” said Lauren E. Bartlett, director, Local Human Rights Lawyering Project at the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law. “The legal aid and other organizations are making history by taking such a strong stance on expanding the rights of migrant farmworkers across the United States.”

Migrant farmworkers often live on the rural farms and ranches where they work. “They are completely cut off from the rest of society,” said Reena Shah, Human Rights project director at Maryland Legal Aid, one of the organizations that signed the complaint. “They cannot get legal help or go see a doctor when they need to – even if they suffer from HIV/AIDS or pesticide poisoning or fall prey to domestic violence or even child abuse.”

“Farmers and ranchers regularly harass outreach workers and even threaten violence if they attempt to talk to migrant farmworkers,” said Nathaniel Norton, supervising attorney, Maryland Legal Aid’s Farmworker Program. “Without the right to receive visitors and access justice, the ongoing human rights violations will continue to go unaddressed and will likely be exacerbated.”
The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights is expected to review the complaint and communicate with the U.S. government towards a solution to the issue of migrant camp access and the right of farmworkers to receive visitors.  The joint legal aid complaint argues that a coordinated federal solution is necessary, given the widespread problem and the inconsistency in state-based policies.

To read the entire press release (with contact info), click here.