Venable honors Ben Civiletti with a $50,000 gift to Legal Aid

Wilhelm Joseph (left), Ben Civiletti

Maryland Legal Aid Executive Director Wilhelm Joseph was one of three guest speakers at a retirement dinner last week for Venable partner (and former U.S. attorney general) Ben Civiletti (right in photo with Joseph), a longtime friend of Legal Aid.

Civiletti is a former Legal Aid board member—and still ardent supporter of Legal Aid. “Apart from glowing tributes made about Ben by several speakers, including Wilhelm, the highlight for Legal Aid was Venable’s contribution of $50,000 in honor of Ben, to support Legal Aid’s continuing work,” said Legal Aid board president Warren Oliveri. “This is in addition to their normal, trendsetting annual contribution.”

Richard Wasserman, a Venable partner and Legal Aid board member, said the gift is a reflection of the firm’s long-standing and close relationship with Legal Aid. “And it’s in honor of Ben’s close relationship with Wilhelm and Legal Aid.”

Added Joseph: “Venable has raised the bar for private attorney support of legal assistance for low-income people in Maryland. It is a special honor that they have done this in the name of a remarkable private lawyer and public servant—Ben Civiletti.”

White House and LSC co-host forum on civil legal assistance for poor Americans

The Legal Services Corporation co-hosted a White House forum to discuss the state of civil legal assistance for low-income Americans. At the forum, President Barack Obama addressed a group that included U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh, and former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, as well as six directors of LSC-funded programs from across the nation (including Wilhelm Joseph of Maryland Legal Aid). Making civil legal assistance available to low-income Americans is “central to our notion of equal justice under the law,” the president said. He pledged to be a “fierce defender and advocate” for legal services. For more last month’s forum, click here.

Celebrity artist (and Legal Aid contributor) Josee Nadeau featured at Sundance Festival

Artist Josee Nadeau

Examiner.com profiled celebrity artist Josée Nadeau, who painted  at last fall’s Maryland Legal Aid 100th anniversary gala in Baltimore.

“Best known as the protégée for the Curator of Claude Monet’s Garden in Giverny, France for 10 years, Josée Nadeau was the Celebrity Artist for the Stars at the LiveStyle Entertainment Film Lounge and Supper Club at Sundance 2012 where 27 events were held, including the HBO Networks Party, The Creative Coalition Spotlight Initiative Awards, Sundance Soirée, film premiere parties (Filly Brown, Wish You Were Here, etc) and too many others to list,” wrote columnist Liz Kelly.

“During Harry Belafonte’s speech about human rights at this 100-year anniversary of Legal Aid in Maryland, Josée did a live painting of this Hollywood icon in 20 minutes. Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley, the First Lady Katie O’Malley, Chief Justice Robert Bell and Wilhelm Joseph, the head of Legal Aid, also did the unveiling of her commemorative piece ‘Dust of Diamonds.’”

To read the entire column, click here.

Belafonte preaches to the choir at Legal Aid’s 100th gala

Entertainer and human rights activist Harry Belafonte

From Maryland Legal Aid board member Erek Barron, Esq., in the Daily Record:

“The Maryland Legal Aid Bureau celebrated its centennial anniversary Saturday night in Baltimore and keynote speaker Harry Belafonte struck a beautiful chord. Both Belafonte and Legal Aid Executive Director Wilhelm Joseph actually sang together on stage,” Barron wrote in the “Generation J.D.” blog.

“Belafonte entertained the crowd but also offered serious sentiments stemming from his experience as an international human rights activist,” Barron continued. “The message was right on time for an organization reenergized around a human rights framework.

“Belafonte acknowledged that he was ‘preaching to the choir.’ But he quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, saying, “it’s important that you preach to the choir because if you don’t they could stop singing,” Barron wrote.

To read the entire post, click here.

(From left to right, Pamela and Harry Belafonte, Taria and Erek Barron.)

 

Marc Steiner interviews Wilhelm Joseph

Legal Aid Executive Director Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr.

Yesterday’s Marc Steiner Show featured a segment on Maryland Legal Aid’s upcoming centenary celebration with executive director Wilhelm Joseph, University of Baltimore law professor Jose’ Anderson (author of an upcoming history of Legal Aid) and Ned Bamberger III from M&T Bank (the centenary event’s lead sponsor).

To listen to the podcast, click here.

 

BBJ interviews Legal Aid exec

Legal Aid Executive Director Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr.

The Baltimore Business Journal interviewed Maryland Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm Joseph in a special Sept. 2 law section. Joseph spoke about Marylanders battered in a troubled economy and the increased demand for civil legal services.

Asked what drives him, Joseph replied: “When I walk in in the morning and I see all the people in the lobby and their faces of need and desperation, I feel scared. When I get to my office and hear words of success stories, I am lifted to the highest heights. I feel we accomplish so much every single day. After 15 years [as executive director], I am as excited as I was my first day on the job.”

Reena Shah honored by Daily Record

Chris Eddings, Wilhelm Joseph

Maryland Legal Aid staff attorney Reena K. Shah, who joined the Housing/Consumer Law Unit in Baltimore in 2008, was one of The Daily Record‘s 50 Leading Women honored last night in Baltimore. The honorees are all 40 or younger who are accomplished in their careers, involved in the community and show a commitment to making change.

Shah, 34, concentrates on housing in her legal work, representing clients dealing with eviction or other residential problems. “It’s about trying to deal with people in a very human way,” she said.

Throughout her career, Shah has shown a commitment to human rights, volunteering in AmeriCorps and later the Peace Corps in Nepal. She is currently launching a U.S. chapter of an Indian nonprofit, Odanadi, which rescues victims of India’s illegal sex trade.

Shah was unable to attend last night’s event. Accepting her award was Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm Joseph (right in the photo, along with the Daily Record’s publisher and president, Christopher A. Eddings).

Assistant U.S. AG Tony West addresses Equal Justice Council breakfast

Tony West, assistant attorney general of the civil division in the U.S. Dept. of Justice (left, with Maryland Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm Joseph), spoke at the 13th Annual Equal Justice Council Awards & Recognition Breakfast at Camden Yards May 20. “I’m especially glad to join you in honoring the important work of the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau and Equal Justice Council this morning,” West told 175 judges, lawyers, law professors, political leaders and other legal professionals. “You provide this community with needed legal services, you secure access to justice by facilitating access to our courts, you provide hope to many who have lost it. In short, you make real the promise Adlai Stevenson spoke of when he observed that ‘the essence of democracy is the dignity of [the individual].’”

West also spoke about the “courage to care.”

“It’s the courage of Odella Oliver, a senior paralegal here at the Bureau, whose persistence in demonstrating that the Social Security Administration had been wrong in terminating a client’s benefits ensured that a 10-year-old child suffering from severe mental disability would continue to receive her childhood SSI disability benefits,” West said. “Or staff attorney Melissa Kilmer who helped protect an elderly client from falling victim to a simple mortgage fraud scheme that could have resulted in foreclosure of the woman’s home. Or any of the award recipients we honor this morning whose examples are inviting all of us to be our best selves.”

Others on hand at the annual event included Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert M. Bell, Baltimore City Circuit Court judges Pamela J. White (the event’s emcee) and Robert B. Kershaw, Rep. John P. Sarbanes (D-Md.), and Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler. This year’s award recipients: F. Paul Bland, Michelle J. Dickenson, Neil E. Duke, and Goldman & Minton P.C. (Champion of Justice awards); Erek Barron (Equal Justice Associates’ Leadership Award); Quinn, Gordon & Wolf (Pacesetter Award); DLA Piper US LLP and Venable LLP (Trailblazer awards); and George W. McManus Jr. (Executive Director’s Award).

The Equal Justice Council, co-chaired by Andrew Jay Graham and Benjamin Rosenberg, is the private-bar fundraising arm of Maryland Legal Aid. Photo: Eric Stocklin.

Post: “Need is up, but funding plummets for legal aid”

Today’s Washington Post Metro section led with an article about the funding crisis faced by legal aid programs across the country. “At the heart of the problem are historically low interest rates,” the article explained. “Legal aid societies nationwide rely on income generated through an arcane process linked to the federal rate, and ‘what’s been good news for everyone else was a blow to us,’ said Susan Erlichman, executive director of the Maryland Legal Services Corp.

Meanwhile, demand is through the roof.

“The Maryland Legal Aid Bureau opened 17,600 cases in the past year–up 1,100 over the previous 12 months–and also referred more cases elsewhere,” the article continued. “The bureau, the state’s largest provider of free civil aid, is operating with $1 million less in interest proceeds, an 11 percent cut.

“Several times each week, the Baltimore office has a day-long program to screen walk-in cases, and slots are taken within 90 minutes of the doors’ opening, said Wilhelm Joseph Jr., executive director. ‘I’m seeing something I have not seen before: people showing up in ties and white shirts filling our seats.’”

To read the article, click here.

Report calls on attorneys to fill legal services gap

A judicial advisory commission has called for higher attorney dues and increased court filing fees to fund civil legal services, The Daily Record reported yesterday.

“The year-old Maryland Access to Justice Commission, [chaired by retired Court of Appeals Judge Irma S.  Raker], did not state in its interim report by how much annual state bar fees should be increased,” the article said. “But the panel noted that, at $140 per year, the current dues Maryland lawyers pay is lower than the national average of $231.”

Maryland Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm Joseph, who serves on the commission, said, “access to justice on the civil side should be a community obligation. However, as we move to that point in time when it occurs, and hopefully it will, we have to address this justice gap in America. We have to go to every single conceivable source.”

To read the article, click here.