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MLAC Welcomes Summer Intern
This summer, MLAC and the Massachusetts IOLTA Committee again participated in the Boston Bar Association's Summer Jobs Program. Sophia Reid, a junior at William W. Henderson K-12, joined us in June as a summer intern. Sophia supported MLAC staff on a wide range of projects and was an excellent addition to our office. Her position was generously funded by the law firm of Hemenway & Barnes.
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Save the Date for Walk to the Hill 2018!
The 19th Annual Walk to the Hill will be held Thursday, January 25, 2018 at the State House. We look forward to seeing you there.
Know someone with a compelling legal aid story to share?
 The Equal Justice Coalition is continuing the project it began last year to show how legal aid can change the lives of low-income people across Massachusetts. Online and through social media, #LegalChangesLives highlights the stories of legal aid clients, attorneys, and community members to educate the public about the importance of legal aid, support the EJC’s budget campaign, and demonstrate the many ways civil legal aid can help vulnerable people. If you or someone you know has a story to share, please contact Catherine Rizos at crizos@mlac.org.
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September 27: The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute hosts its third annual Catalyst for Change Award Reception at the offices of Nutter McClennen & Fish. The 2017 Catalyst for Change Award recipient is John Carroll, a partner at Meehan, Boyle, Black and Bogdanow. Carroll is also a member of the Board of Directors of Greater Boston Legal Services and immediate past chair of the Equal Justice Coalition. For more information about this event, contact Tamar Lewis at tlewis@mlri.org.
September 28: The Children's Law Center of Massachusetts holds its 40th Anniversary Celebration in Nahant. Stay tuned to CLCM's website for more information.
October 24: Tickets are on sale now for Massachusetts Advocates for Children's third annual Celebrating Voices Gala at the Sheraton Boston. MAC will honor former State Representative Alice Wolf and disability employment advocate Oswald "Oz" Mondejar of Partners Continuing Care.
November 16: The Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee hosts “RESPONDING PROACTIVELY OR PUNITIVELY: Rethinking Prosecution by Service Providers of Those They Serve.” The full-day program will take place at Massachusettts Continuing Legal Education in Boston. Program agenda, registration and credit information will be available on the MHLAC website in early September.
November 16-19: The National Consumer Law Center holds its Consumer Rights Litigation Conference in Washington, DC. Network with over 800 consumer advocates from around the nation. This is a great opportunity to build your practice representing consumers facing foreclosures, debt collection abuses, predatory lending, auto fraud, credit report errors, student loan debt, and more. Apply for a scholarship by September 6; early bird registration discount ends Sept. 29. Please contact SarahEmily Lekberg, NCLC's Manager of Conferences and Trainings with questions: slekberg@nclc.org or 617-542-8010. NCLC is also co-hosting a day of congressional visits devoted to consumer justice issues ahead of the conference on November 15.
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Northeast Legal Aid received a $100,000 grant from the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation to fund, over a two-year period, a new Caregivers of Children at Risk Project. The project will entail extensive outreach to grandparents, other relatives and other caregivers of children living in families struggling with opioid addiction. Free legal assistance will be provided to these caregivers. The hope is that this assistance can, in turn, help children at risk to themselves avoid opioid addiction. Organizations representing grandparents, local schools, community organizations and court representatives have all indicated support for the new project.
The Center for Public Representation unveiled its new website this summer. The re-designed website offers summaries of CPR’s multiple topic areas related to individuals with disabilities, ranging from community inclusion to supported employment to health care and legal capacity. The site incorporates CPR’s advocacy and litigation initiatives. The redesign is ongoing; CPR is still updating its case listings and news features, developing staff and board profiles; and welcomes comments on the new design – and the new CPR logo. CPR’s advocacy office in Washington, D.C., developed a linked website, www.protectourmedicaid.org, to marshal the efforts of the national disability community to thwart the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and proposed cuts to Medicaid, the primary funding source for community-based services for people with disabilities.
In Revere, Greater Boston Legal Services' legal assistance enabled at least nine low-income—and in many cases elderly and disabled—tenants to avoid eviction from a rooming house, where many had lived for over a decade. In April, a group of rooming house tenants whose building had been sold to a developer approached City Life/Vida Urbana (CLVU), a housing justice organization and longtime community partner of GBLS that fights displacement across greater Boston through tenant organizing, for assistance after the entire building received no-fault, 30-day eviction notices. With the assistance of CLVU organizers and GBLS advocates who informed them about their rights in summary process (eviction) proceedings, the tenants wrote and circulated letters that were signed by over 20 tenant representatives in the building, demanding negotiations with the buyer and seller of the property to discuss alternatives to eviction. The tenants also planned and held a rally on the property to make those demands public. Five tenant association members received court summonses, including the owner of a small hair salon on the first floor of the building who joined the association in solidarity with the residential tenants. After GBLS advocates assisted those tenants with their initial eviction pleadings and raised substantial conditions-related counterclaims against the seller of the building, the buyer ultimately decided to drop the evictions and maintain the property as a rooming house, preserving tenancies for the low-income residents.
Free Online Resources from NCLC's Digital Library
Model State Law: Model Medical Debt Protection Act, August 2017
Legal Analysis
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 On June 5, MetroWest Legal Services held the 20th Annual Nancy King Memorial Golf Tournament at Framingham Country Club, with over 90 golfers taking to the golf course. Although the weather left much to be desired, with drizzle and temperatures in the 50's, the golfers took it in stride. The round of golf was followed by a fun evening of live and silent auctions, an award ceremony and raffle. The event raised a record $80,000! Click here to see more photos of the event Special thanks to Stan Rowin for volunteering as our photographer.
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MetroWest Legal Services recently welcomed two new attorneys to its staff. Leah Porter comes to MWLS after serving two consecutive years with AmeriCorps Legal Advocates (ALA) of Massachusetts. Leah worked as an ALA attorney at Community Legal Aid for one year, representing youth in education law cases. During her second service year with ALA, she worked at MWLS, representing elders with a variety of legal issues. Leah is a 2015 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law. Her work will be divided between elder law and education law. Elizabeth Firestone joined MWLS in August and will be working primarily on special immigrant juvenile, or SIJ, cases. Elizabeth is a graduate of Florida State University, and also served with ALA, representing unaccompanied minors in long-term foster care. She also spent a year as an Asylum and Children’s Law Fellow in Memphis, providing legal representation to unaccompanied minors and families seeking asylum.
The Center for Public Representation welcomes Emily Stephens as its director of communications. Emily is working out of CPR’s Northampton and Washington, D.C., offices. Emily has been instrumental in the re-design of CPR’s website, and the creation of a linked website, www.protectourmedicaid, which rallied the disability coalition across the nation to protest the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and proposed cuts to Medicaid. Emily also ushered CPR into the world of social media, setting up the organization's Facebook page. In addition to communications, Emily will be promoting development and fundraising initiatives. She can be reached at estephens@cpr-ma.org.
Bob Fleischner, long-time assistant director at the Center for Public Representation, retired in June after more than four decades of service on behalf of individuals with disabilities. In addition to his legal work—especially in the areas of guardianship, juvenile justice and criminal justice—Bob has been a generous mentor who has served (and continues to serve) on numerous boards across the Commonwealth. On both the state and national level, his efforts have brought together different stakeholders to work together on common issues. He will be missed throughout the legal service community, but we are pleased to report he is continuing to work for CPR one day a week on special initiatives.
Greater Boston Legal Services’ beloved colleague, Sarah Anderson, passed away on August 14. Sarah was a senior attorney in the Elder, Health, and Disability Unit and had been a member of the GBLS family since 1986. In the words of Executive Director Jacqui Bowman, “Sarah was a good friend and longtime colleague to many of us. It is hard to conceive of GBLS without her quiet support and leadership… She willingly shared her knowledge, wisdom, ideas or simply offered her support.” Learn more about Sarah's life here. Condolences can be sent to Sarah's daughter Myriam Anderson at 7 Wallace Court, Charlestown, MA 02129.
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Ventura Dennis, GBLS' CORI and Re-entry Project Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Fellow, received the Massachusetts Bar Association's Outstanding Young Lawyer Award at the 2017 MBA Volunteer Recognition Dinner July 19.
Miriam Ruttenberg, an attorney at the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, received the Women’s Bar Association’s 2017 Nery Arrano Pro Bono Award for her dedication to serving low-income clients.
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These are just a few highlights of recent media coverage. For a full list, visit the News section of the MLAC website.
In Holyoke, Latino parents to sue over interpretation services (Boston Globe)
The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, and Holland & Knight have filed suit against the state and Holyoke school officials on behalf of a group of Latino parents who say that the school system has consistently failed to translate materials and provide interpretive services for parents who do not speak English fluently. The failure to provide these services, which are required under federal civil rights law, prevents parents from fully participating in their children's education.
Experts worry criminal-records law violations aren't being caught (Boston Globe)
In the past five years in Massachusetts, only 10 people or organizations were found to have violated the law relating to criminal background check, a number that raises concerns that other violations are not being caught. Attorneys at Greater Boston Legal Services argue that the state's system for investigating these violations—which can greatly impact a job applicant's employment prospects for years—is flawed.
State to transfer 14 out of Bridgewater treatment facility (Brockton Enterprise)
Prisoners' Legal Services scored an important victory for 14 men who were civilly committed for substance abuse treatment. The men, who were being held at the Massachusetts Treatment Center along with some of the state's most dangerous sex offenders, said they were enduring physical abuse and receiving almost no treatment at the center. They will be moved to the minimum-security facility where they were previously held, and the state will no longer place civilly committed individuals at the MTC.
Advocates applaud expansion of housing court to Cape (Cape Cod Times)
The FY18 state budget allocates $750,000 to the expansion of housing court to areas of the state not currently served by the specialty court, including Cape Cod. Advocates are cheering the decision, which will provide tenants with more resources and better odds of resolving their cases without eviction and other catastrophic consequences.
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CLICK HERE to print "People Pages," an alphabetical directory of Massachusetts Legal Services staff members and their contact information. (Note: You must log in to MassLegalServices.org to access this list.) You can also look up staff individually by last name using the search function on MassLegalServices.org.
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