Justice in the Margins: Lawyer committed to public service

Published on the Post-Gazette Ipso Facto, THURSDAY, 06 DECEMBER 2012

Written by Justin Karter

Neighborhood Legal Services Association (NLSA) and the community benefits from the work of extremely talented attorneys. This week’s post highlights the work of Katy McKee, a staff attorney at NLSA. 

When a 65-year-old man with severe epilepsy recently came to NLSA after being denied Social Security benefits, Attorney Katy McKee was on the case. The man had survived without seeking assistance from Social Security for years. He lived on approximately $200 a month and food stamps, from which he tried to maintain a house, and pay his utilities and property taxes. Then, after his cash assistance was cut off, he finally sought help from NLSA.

“At the time he came to our office,” McKee reported, “he was afraid to shower or turn on his heat. He had unplugged his battered refrigerator, for fear of the cost of the utilities, and could not afford to get anything repaired in his home.” 

Working with NLSA’s social worker, Kathleen Parke, McKee was able to help him recover approximately $10,000 in back benefits, avoid his utilities from being shut off, and secure an ongoing source of monthly benefit payments. 

“It’s nice to know what a big difference NLSA can make in the lives of our clients. This client did not have the capacity to deal with the issues he was facing on his own. But our office was able to offer assistance that greatly improved his quality of life,” McKee said. 

For Katy McKee, her interest in public service and law started at the College of Wooster when she took advantage of an off campus study opportunity on the U.S. Mexican border. It was during this time, working at a non-profit immigration agency, that Attorney McKee decided that she wanted a career helping under-served populations. 

“Before my time on the border, I hadn’t had any direct exposure to the legal profession and had never considered the law as a possible career. The experience opened my eyes to the ways that lawyers can really help people to navigate complicated situations,” McKee remembered. 

She attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Law with the assistance of a public interest scholarship. She took advantage of the opportunities available in Pittsburgh by participating in the Elder Law Clinic at the law school, joining Pitt Law’s public interest student group (PLISF), interning at Jewish Family and Children’s Service in the immigration law program and at the Women’s Center and Shelter, completing a practicum with NLSA and later working at the organization as an intern handling Protection from Abuse cases. These experiences with NLSA led to her current job as a staff attorney in 2007. 

“I got really lucky,” she said, “because of all the funding cuts there are fewer positions today for young lawyers looking for a career in public interest law.” 

Since 2007, McKee has handled cases for clients at NLSA including public and subsidized housing cases, illegal lockouts, denials and terminations of Supplemental Security Income, bankruptcy, unemployment compensation, and Protection from Abuse. 

Pamela Dalton-Arlotti, the Director of Program Performance and Compliance at NLSA states that “when individuals come to NLSA, they are often facing life threatening emergencies, whether it be from physical abuse or from the loss of heat or housing, and Katy, exemplifies the compassion, skill, and genuine commitment that our staff bring to each request for help.” She stated, “We recognize her value as does the legal community in Pittsburgh given that Katy was recently awarded the 2012 Lorraine M. Bittner Public Interest Attorney Award by the Allegheny County Bar Foundation.” This award is given to an outstanding and dedicated attorney whose primary function is the delivery of civil legal services to the poor. 

NLSA was established in 1966 as a non-profit, public interest law firm to provide civil legal assistance to poor and vulnerable residents of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, and Lawrence Counties. NLSA is the major provider of free civil legal services in the area and helps more than 20,000 individuals and families each year. 

Click here to volunteer or donate to NLSA 

(Image: NLSA attorney Katy McKee listens to a client. NLSA photo)

Justice in the Margins: Legal services save families and local economy

Published on Post-Gazette IPSO FACTO THURSDAY, 08 NOVEMBER 2012
Written by Justin Karter

Under the sixth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, every citizen is guaranteed a right to a lawyer if they are accused of a crime, yet innocent people must face the removal of their home, a predatory lawsuit or even the crisis of a missing child without access to legal guidance and protection. Poverty legal services fill this void and have a long history of defending the most vulnerable among us from both fraud and abuse, but recent cuts to their funding guarantee that they will be able to help fewer and fewer people and-- studies show-- that affects all of us.

“This is the type of funding that not only rights wrongs but makes clear economic sense,” explained Al Azen, Executive Director of Pennsylvania’s Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (PA IOLTA), a non-profit program that provides funding for civil legal aid.

A new study by PA IOLTA, shows that over the last fiscal year the work of poverty legal services created $594 million for the Pennsylvania economy, an unheard-of eleven fold economic return on their funding.

“Legal Services operates with the understanding that when everyone is given access to justice it truly benefits the whole community. When we all have a fair chance to succeed then Pittsburgh succeeds,” said Robert V. Racunas, executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services Association (NLSA), Pittsburgh’s largest provider of free civil legal aid.

REAL CASE EXAMPLES:

Recent cases handled by NLSA illustrate how their work benefits the entire economy.

A 62-year-old widow, in danger of losing her home of 36 years after the death of her husband, avoided moving to a shelter because of free legal aid.

When the elderly woman came to NLSA, her home had already been sold at a tax auction. The lawyers at NLSA took her case to bankruptcy court and got her back into her home, rather than a shelter.

In 2011 alone, over 1,700 families avoided the need for an emergency shelter due the legal aid services. Over a five-year period, this amounts to a savings of $111 million for the state of Pennsylvania in emergency shelter costs, according to a report issued by IOLTA.

Housing studies show that vacant properties created by foreclosures can cost neighbors over $6,000 each, according to Joanna Deming, director of education and outreach for the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. A new publication by Housing Alliance, “A New Vision for Housing Market Recovery” reports that in two-thirds of the cases handled by free legal aid services the clients avoided a pending foreclosure.

“Every dollar that you put into the hands of people in poverty goes right back into the economy. That dollar gets spent right away on groceries and necessities, resulting in an economic benefit to the entire community,” Azen said.

When free legal aid can protect innocent people from financially crippling circumstances, their clients can continue to live their lives without continued public assistance, and can spend their money at the local restaurants, shops and businesses that support Pittsburgh’s economy.

Free legal aid also saves the local economy by intervening and preventing domestic disputes. After a child went missing in a custody dispute during the Christmas holidays, NLSA returned the child to the mother.

The single working mother from Lawrence County came to the lawyers at NLSA after her child disappeared right before Christmas. NLSA obtained an order giving the mother primary custody, however the father still refused to return the child. To make matters worse, the child showed signs of abuse, evinced by some bruises. NLSA then obtained a motion for the immediate return of the child with the help of the police and reunited the mother with her son.

The same study by PA IOLTA reports that legal aid protected over 6,000 families in Pennsylvania from domestic abuse issues in 2011. Without legal aid, the community would incur the costs of “medical care for injured victims, education and counseling services for affected children, and law enforcement resources.” This all adds up to a savings of $23 million in costs related to domestic disputes, according to PA IOLTA.

“When individuals are unrepresented and unable to assert their right to obtain federal benefits, stay in their home, or keep their jobs, many times the communities must step in to fill the gap, spending taxpayer funds on countless other programs,” said Carol McCarthy, a Pittsburgh family attorney and president of NLSA’s Board of Directors.

EFFECT OF CUTS

Despite these successes, cuts from both state and federal sources reduced funding for free civil legal aid by 20% in just the past year, forcing agencies to let go of staff attorneys and cut back on their services.

In a September newsletter to their clients, NLSA explained, “Budget cuts at both the federal and state level have further reduced NLSA’s funding by $800,000 – significantly impacting NLSA’s ability to sustain services.”

The recent cutbacks have forced NLSA to let go 6 staff attorneys, which influences the number and type of cases they can handle.

“Even before the cuts, legal aid services did not have adequate funding to meet the needs of every client,” said McCarthy.

The NLSA reports that it will continue to seek new sources of funding in order to keep their doors open to those who need representation but the cuts will severely affect how much attention they will be able to give each case.

“The cuts have come as a result of economic pressures,” Azen explained. “It’s not a philosophical issue.” Everyone understands that the recession is forcing tough decisions on both state and federal budgets but cutting funds to a program with an eleven-fold return on investment is simply short sighted.

“In a democracy everyone’s voice needs an opportunity to be head, or you’ll have complete chaos. People have to have to the ability to assert their voice and their rights, or they’ll be forced to resort to other means,” said Azen.

Supporting legal services does more than just ensure that people facing wrongful evictions or foreclosures can stay in their homes, that the elderly or disabled who are denied benefits can assert their rights, or that a single-mother and a victim of domestic abuse can find protection in the law and even gain custody of her child. While every dollar ensures these cases continue to be heard, it also supports the principles of democracy and guarantees that our legal system continues to be respected as a place where everyone’s voice and claim to justice has an opportunity to be heard.

Click here to volunteer or donate to NLSA.

(Top Image: Robert V. Racunas, executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services Association (NLSA))

Justice in the Margins: Poverty legal services gets help from rarely used legal doctrine

Published on Post-Gazette IPSO FACTO THURSDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2012
Written by Justin Karter



Legal Services is making tough choices in the face of large cuts to their funding (as discussed in last week’s post). In a time when an increasing percentage of the population is in need of civil legal aid, the availability of these services is shrinking. In response, Neighborhood Legal Services Association (NLSA) has put out a call to the Pittsburgh community to help drum up resources outside of its traditional sources of funding. Recently, Pittsburgh attorney John C. Evans answered this call when he made use of a rarely used legal doctrine to donate $62,759.67 of residual funds from a class action lawsuit to NLSA.

“Might should never make right. Neighborhood Legal Services Association makes certain that the law is for all people and that no one is excluded from our system of justice. At a time when grants are falling, we must help NLSA with its mission,” said Evans, a partner at Specter Specter Evans & Manogue, P.C.

The $62,759.67 comes from the unclaimed residual funds resulting from a flat glass price fixing anti-trust class action settlement. It is not uncommon to have unclaimed funds from class action suits, and eventually, the Court is alerted and asked to issue an order dispersing the funds pursuant to the cy pres doctrine. The term cy pres is derived from the Norman French term “cy pres comme possible,” which means “as near as possible.” This doctrine, though rarely used, allows the Court to dispose of unclaimed funds to the “next best use”.
Evans applied to United States District Judge Donetta W. Ambrose for the unclaimed settlement funds to be directed to NLSA since the organization has an impressive track-record representing consumers and others who have nowhere else to turn for legal help.

NLSA attorneys help low-income individuals and victims of domestic violence seek economic justice in a wide range of consumer protection areas, including mortgages, student and payday loans, credit cards, debt collection, auto fraud, energy, and telecommunications, among other areas.

The funds presented by Evans come from a Federal case but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently promulgated new rules that encourage the use of unused funds in State cases to help provide legal services to low-income Pennsylvanians. The rules require that 50% of residual funds be designated to Pennsylvania’s Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (PA IOLTA), a non-profit program that provides funding for civil legal aid. The remaining 50% either go to the PA IOLTA Board or to other charitable organizations such as NLSA that promotes the interests of the lawsuit’s objectives.

“The continued donation of cy pres awards could have a significant impact on the lives of domestic violence victims, the elderly, families, and other NLSA clients,” said Christine Kirby, NLSA Development Attorney.

This award comes at a time when NLSA needs it the most; there have been many budget cuts, but an increase in demand for legal assistance. Unfortunately, the cost of hiring an attorney is now beyond the means of all but a small segment of our local population. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 50% of all the 518,366 households situated within Allegheny County survive on income totaling less than $50,000 per year. Further, of these 260,154 households, 27.1% of them subsist on income less than $25,000 per year. These statistics show that the population of poor and near poor continues to grow and now represents 1 in 2 households within our community.

In a letter to area attorneys Carol McCarthy, president of NLSA’s Board of Directors, recently wrote, “The poor and near poor are those amongst us live day to day; month to month. They are those amongst us who worry about whether they will have enough food to eat, whether they will have adequate shelter, whether they will be able to get the medical care they need. Yet in today’s society where access to the courts and government services is crucial for this segment of the population, our elected officials have cut funding to the agencies that serve the needs of the poor and near poor.”

Neighborhood Legal Services Association is one such agency whose mission is to serve the needs of the poor and the near poor. Over the past four decades, NLSA has provided legal assistance to more than one million individuals and families with no other place to turn. NLSA provides quality legal representation to individuals facing eviction and foreclosure, denied public benefits, reclaiming unpaid wages, and protecting themselves from domestic violence, among other issues.

NLSA was established in 1966 as a non-profit, public interest law firm to provide civil legal assistance to poor and vulnerable residents of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, and Lawrence Counties. NLSA is the major provider of free civil legal services in the area, and helps more than 20,000 individuals and families each year.

Specter Specter Evans & Manogue, P.C. represents people who have been injured by dangerous drugs and people who have defrauded as a result of consumer fraud or illegal pricing practices.
For more information about cy pres and directing an award to NLSA contact Christine Kirby at kirbyc@nlsa.us or Lynn Ramsey at ramseyL@nlsa.us.

Justice in the Margins: On Thanksgiving, thanking those who support equal access to justice

Published on Post-Gazette IPSO FACTO THURSDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2012 
Written by Justin Karter

The past two weeks we have documented the funding cuts to poverty legal services and examined one of the ways that the local legal community has stepped up to answer the call and support legal services. On Thanksgiving, NLSA thanks those who have supported the mission of equal access to justice for all and celebrates the pro bono contributions of outstanding local attorneys. The following is one example of the life changing cases handled by those attorneys who volunteer to assist clients through NLSA.

Efrem Grail is a lauded defense attorney in “white collar” criminal matters for Reed Smith, the largest law firm in the city of Pittsburgh, and has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America in both corporate compliance and white collar defense law. Grail said, however, that some of the most rewarding experiences in his legal career have come out of pro bono cases he handled through Neighborhood Legal Services Association (NLSA).

“It is life affirming to be able to get back in the battle and represent individuals and families,” said Grail. “This is about going to court for someone who has suffered and is standing up for themselves and you are able to advocate for them.”

Grail’s firm, which consistently volunteers as a member of the Pittsburgh Pro Bono Partnership’s PFA Project, agreed to handle all Protection from Abuse (PFA) cases that came in to NLSA on a designated day.

In one remarkable case Grail remembered a middle-aged woman with 5 children who called seeking protection after years of domestic violence against her and her children. The woman was a member of an insular religious and cultural minority and because of this isolation she had waited many years to ask for help from the outside. “For her to take this brave step toward intervention was truly remarkable,” said Grail.

The woman’s oldest child was a student at a local university and the daughter had grown increasingly worried about the abuse in the house. “She was instrumental in facilitating getting the mother to take this positive step for herself and for the family,” said Grail. NLSA and Grail provided free legal assistance to this family so that the mother could seek court protection and provide a home for her children, free from abuse.

“The efforts she made, the help of the daughter, and the assistance of the legal system combined to prevent this woman from becoming another terrible statistic,” said Grail.

Last year, pro bono attorneys handled 2,088 cases through NLSA. In the same year 269 different attorneys took at least one case through the pro bono program, contributing a total of 7,054 hours of service.

“This is about handling cases that do fundamental good for families and children in a very basic one-to-one way,” said Grail.

Rule 6.1 of professional conduct in The Pennsylvania Code states that lawyers “shall render public interest legal service,” and that this duty can be met by “providing professional services at no fee to persons of limited means,” and by “financial support for organizations that provide legal services to persons of limited means.” NLSA welcomes attorneys at all stages of their legal careers to volunteer and provide pro bono services.

NLSA’s pro bono program is committed to making the referral process beneficial for both the client and volunteer attorney and periodic training sessions on the particular substantive areas of the law are offered. Volunteers can accept work or other volunteer tasks according to their own schedules and will be provided opportunities to use their own expertise to develop new areas of the law.

Lawyers can also get involved by taking reduced fee referrals, participating in the private bar in the Older & Wiser Project, taking bankruptcy referrals, representing clients at unemployment compensation referee hearings, handling litigation defense cases and joining the Equal Justice Campaign Committee, among other opportunities.

According to the American Bar Association (ABA) moral code of professional responsibility, “personal involvement in the problems of the disadvantaged can be one of the most rewarding experiences in the life of a lawyer. Every lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional workload, should find time to participate in serving the disadvantaged.”

For more information about volunteer and pro bono opportunities with NLSA contact Christine Kirby at kirbyc@nlsa.us or Lynn Ramsey at ramseyL@nlsa.us. To volunteer to participate in NLSA’s Protection from Abuse Representation Project, representing Victims of Domestic Violence in their final PFA hearing, contact Mary Ann Troper-Malley at troperma@nlsa.us.

Click here to volunteer or donate to NLSA.

Justice in the Margins: The intersection of law and social work

Published on Post-Gazette IPSO FACTO THURSDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2012
Written by Justin Karter

Neighborhood Legal Services (NLSA) is conscious of the social service needs that legal services clients present in addition to their civil legal needs. That is why NLSA has developed The Law & Social Work Partnership Program to ensure that clients get the support and key social services they need to achieve more comprehensive and longer lasting solutions to their legal problems.

“If somebody loses their job and then can’t pay their utilities that could break their rental agreement and the next thing you know they’re being evicted-- and now you have a legal issue,” explained Kathleen Parke, a Social Worker at NLSA. “Once the legal issue is handled social workers can get to the root of the problem and connect a client with the appropriate resources.”

The Law & Social Work Program works to indentify the needs of a client and match them with access to social services. These services often help to address their urgent legal problems and ultimately prevent future crises from reoccurring.

When a 21-year-old mother with an 8-month-old baby had fled an abusive relationship and was seeking legal help, the lawyers at NLSA were able to obtain a Protection from Abuse Order. The father of the child had repeatedly abused the mother and had threatened to kill both her and the child. While the Protection from Abuse Order prevented him from having contact with either the mother or the child, it could not help the struggling mother who now had build a new home for herself and her child. The social worker at NLSA, however, was able to meet with the mother and help her obtain Section 8 housing as well as employment training, a clothing voucher, and a referral service for a divorce lawyer.

“It makes sense to take a holistic approach to helping clients who have needs that are more than just legal—it’s a matter of being able to connect them with resources that will help them avoid further trouble,” said Parke.
Parke described helping another woman who had recently suffered a massive stroke. The elderly woman’s memory was badly damaged by the stroke and her mental health had deteriorated. The woman stopped receiving services when she forgot to renew them and she could no longer pay her mortgage and faced eviction. Parke was able to set her up with a program that would help manage her finances and pay her bills on time and, as a result of her efforts, the woman was able to stay in her home.

“Working with clients who come in with legal issues but who have underlying mental health issues ends up preventing a lot of homelessness,” said Parke.

Having a social worker as part of the legal services team leads to improved efficiencies and positive results for clients. NLSA lawyers are able to focus on representing the client and resolving the legal issues and the social worker helps to make sure the underlying social issues are solved so the legal problems don't escalate.

NLSA provides critical legal services to the victims of domestic violence; to seniors in order to preserve dignity and human necessities such as income, health care, and shelter; to citizens with disabilities promoting accessibility, equality and independence; and to residents facing housing issues, foreclosures, and evictions thereby preserving shelter and preventing homelessness.

(Image: Kathleen Parke/NLSA photo)

Shadyside bar, Buffalo Blues a finalist in ESPN poll

October 15, 2012
By Justin Karter

Point Park News Service

Buffalo Blues, a local Shadyside bar, has been named one of the best sports bars in North America by ESPN.

The well regarded bar, located at 216 S. Highland, was the only Pennsylvania bar in the competition this year, following the 2011 win by Chickie’s & Pete’s Bar in Philadelphia.

In this year’s competition of over 5,000 nominees, Walk-On’s Bistreaux in New Orleans was named the winner, but Michael DiFiore, owner of the B2 Restaurant group which runs Shadyside bars Buffalo Blues, Bites and Brews, 1947 Tavern and Elbow Room, was still excited about the nomination.

“We were the smallest place among the finalists and [we] are really a local, neighborhood bar while others are centered in major sports campuses,” DiFiore said.

DiFore went on to explain the competition in terms of sports metaphors.

“We talked about it around here in terms of Hickory versus South bend from Hoosiers,” he said.

Buffalo Blues originally opened as a live music venue for blues acts in 1996. The menu featured southern comfort food, and in its second year in business, won a Pittsburgh wing cook off. A year later, Buffalo Blues was selected to host the first season of “The Jerome Bettis Show” live every week.

“’The Jerome Bettis Show’ brought the whole Pittsburgh sports community right into our bar,” DiFiore said. “We had guys like Franco Harris and Hines Ward in here, so after that we kept converting spaces to accommodate our growing sports crowd.”

While Buffalo Blues prides itself on showing every single game each week, it has also been home to a large group of Buffalo Bills fans from the very beginning. The bar originally received its name from the blues music it played and the Buffalo wings it served, but some took it as “Buffalo’s Blues,” referring to the Buffalo Bills string of four consecutive Super Bowl losses in the early nineties. The bar began to attract Bill’s backers, a growing group of expats from upstate New York, explained manager Jennifer Carter.

“We have 34 TVs and we show every single NFL game, but when Bills backers fill the bar we are happy to accommodate them,” Carter said.

Joe Fellows, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh from Little Valley, N.Y., sat surrounded by blue and white jerseys at one corner of the bar.

“I saw this bar listed on the Bills website and came as soon as I moved here. It has tons of TVs, it’s packed with football fans and I plan on coming for every game,” Fellows said. “It’s great that this bar is getting some recognition.”

On Sundays the bar fills to standing room only with the jerseys of different NFL teams, a large contingent of which don black and gold for the hometown team. However, the stories of most of the fans are similar, regardless of the team they support. Most sports buffs start coming to the bar when they move to Pittsburgh for school or work, and it’s the kind of place where one can find fellow fans from everywhere, according to DiFiore. Many enthusiasts befriend a group of likeminded fans huddled around the game they want to watch and then come back every week.

“So far, most of the people I know [are people] I’ve met at this bar on Sundays,” said Pitt graduate student Hilary Scherer, a Washington, D.C. native.

Rochester born Dave O’Brien moved to Pittsburgh in 2004 to start school at Duquesne, and after he heard about Buffalo Blues from a friend, he began watching football there every week.

“I heard there was a great football bar in Shadyside so I came and there were 100 other fans – it seemed – so I’ve come every time since,” O’Brien said.

Carter added that she already noted a bump in attendance after the ESPN poll.

“We are hoping that next year we will drum up even more support,” DiFiore said.

Legal Services saves families and local economy, studies show

October 10, 2012
By Justin Karter

Published on Point Park News Service

A 62-year-old widow, in danger of losing her home of 36 years after the loss of her husband, avoided moving to a shelter because of free legal aid.

After a child went missing in a custody dispute during the Christmas holidays, Neighborhood Legal Services Association, Pittsburgh’s largest provider of free civil legal aid, returned the child to the mother.

Despite these successes, cuts from both state and federal sources reduced funding for free civil legal aid by 20% in just the past year, forcing agencies to let go of staff attorneys and cut back on their services.

“Legal Services operates with the understanding that when everyone is given access to justice it truly benefits the whole community. When we all have a fair chance to succeed then Pittsburgh succeeds,” said Robert V. Racunas Esq., executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services Association of Pittsburgh (NLSA).

In a September newsletter to their clients, NLSA explained, “Budget cuts at both the federal and state level have further reduced NLSA’s funding by $800,000 – significantly impacting NLSA’s ability to sustain services.”

The recent cutbacks have forced NLSA to let go 6 staff attorneys, which influences the number and type of cases they can handle.

“Even before the cuts, legal aid services did not have adequate funding to meet the needs of every client,” said Carol McCarthy Esq., a Pittsburgh family attorney and president of NLSA’s Board of Directors.

When free legal aid organizations cannot help their clients, it actually affects the entire economy, according to a study by Pennsylvania’s Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (PA IOLTA), a non-profit program that provides funding for civil legal aid.

“This is the type of funding that not only rights wrongs but makes clear economic sense,” Executive Director of PA IOLTA Al Azen said.

A new study by PA IOLTA, shows that over the last fiscal year the work of poverty legal services created $594 million for the local economy, an unheard-of eleven fold economic return on their funding.

Much of the economic benefit of free legal aid comes from saved resources.

“When individuals are unrepresented and unable to assert their right to obtain federal benefits, stay in their home, or keep their jobs, many times the communities must step in to fill the gap, spending taxpayer funds on countless other programs,” McCarthy said.

For example, when an elderly woman, who recently lost her husband, came to NLSA, her home had already been sold at a tax auction. The lawyers at NLSA took her case to bankruptcy court and got her back into her home, rather than a shelter.

In 2011 alone, over 1,700 families avoided the need for an emergency shelter due the legal aid services. Over a five-year period, this amounts to a savings of $111 million for the state of Pennsylvania in emergency shelter costs, according to a report issued by IOLTA.

Housing studies show that vacant properties created by foreclosures can cost neighbors over $6,000 each, according to Joanna Deming, director of education and outreach for the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. A new publication by Housing Alliance, “A New Vision for Housing Market Recovery” reports that in two-thirds of the cases handled by free legal aid services the clients avoided a pending foreclosure.

When free legal aid can protect innocent people from financially crippling circumstances, their clients can continue to live their lives without continued public assistance, and can spend their money at the local restaurants, shops and businesses that support Pittsburgh’s economy.

“Every dollar that you put into the hands of people in poverty goes right back into the economy. That dollar gets spent right away on groceries and necessities, resulting in an economic benefit to the entire community,” Azen said.

Free legal aid also saves the local economy by intervening and preventing domestic disputes. The single working mother from Lawrence County came to the lawyers at NLSA after her child disappeared right before Christmas. NLSA obtained an order giving the mother primary custody, however the father still refused to return the child. To make matters worse, the child showed signs of abuse, evinced by some bruises. NLSA then obtained a motion for the immediate return of the child with the help of the police and reunited the mother with her son.

The same study by IOLTA reports that legal aid protected over 6,000 families in Pennsylvania from domestic abuse issues in 2011. Without legal aid, the community would incur the costs of “medical care for injured victims, education and counseling services for affected children, and law enforcement resources.” This all adds up to a savings of $23 million in costs related to domestic disputes, according to IOLTA.

“In a democracy everyone’s voice needs an opportunity to be head, or you’ll have complete chaos. People have to have to the ability to assert their voice and their rights, or they’ll be forced to resort to other means,” said Azen.

The NLSA reports that it will continue to seek new sources of funding in order to keep their doors open to those who need representation but the cuts will severely affect how much attention they will be able to give each case.

“The cuts have come as a result of economic pressures,” Azen explained. “It’s not a philosophical issue.”

‘The Marriage Plot’ author to speak in Pittsburgh

‘The Marriage Plot’ author to speak in Pittsburgh
October 22, 2012

By Justin Karter

Published on Point Park News Service

In his latest book The Marriage Plot, Pulitzer-prize winning author Jeffrey Eugenides delved into the lives and minds of college students as they navigated literature and semiotics, anxieties about graduation, sexual desires, and romantic relationships.

On Monday Oct. 22 Eugenides will speak in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland to an audience expected to be largely composed of students from local universities. Eugenides will be the third in a series of ten lectures in the 2012-13 season of Literary Evenings, Monday Night Lecture Series, presented by Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures and sponsored by the Drue Heinz Trust.

“Jeffrey Eugenides is one of America’s finest contemporary novelists. Young protagonists like Madeleine Hanna and Calliope Stephanides and their stories of searching for love in an imperfect world have resonated with younger adult readers. This will be Jeff’s first appearance in Pittsburgh and we are expecting a big turn-out of students from local universities,” said Jayne Adair, Executive Director of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures.

His latest release, a New York Times best-seller, The Marriage Plot, tells the story of three college students graduating from Brown University- Eugenides’ alma mater- into the recession of mid-80’s. The novel examines the psychology of all three characters and demonstrates how the books they read and the classes they take shape not only their relationships with one another but also their understanding of the world.

In the novel, the privileged, pretty and literary Madeleine, who loves the traditional romantic narratives of Eliot, Austen and Bronte, opts to take a trendy new course in semiotics. The class deconstructs the novel (and reality) as she knows it. Madeleine meets her eventual boyfriend, the intellectually curious but manic depressive Leonard, a gifted biology student with a troubled past. As her roller-coaster relationship with Leonard rises and falls, Madeleine continuously moves the frustrated, religio-philosophical Mitchell in and out of the friend-zone, while he quests across Europe and India for spiritual truth. The book’s title fittingly plays on the relationship between fiction and reality, referring to Madeleine’s senior thesis, which mourns the decreased sense of permanence in contemporary western novels due to changing societal norms concerning marriage.

“As somebody who studied literature in college, the novel appealed to me,” said Gabrielle Langmann, a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and a current Medical Student at UPMC. “I think it captured how we all felt in college– trying to figure out what we are doing with our lives and coming up with a worldview that is uniquely our own.”

Eugenides is expected to speak to the Pittsburgh crowd about his career as a writer and his previous works but the majority of the lecture will be focused on on The Marriage Plot, explained Eryn Morgan, Marketing Manager of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. “We brought him in the talk about The Marriage Plot, so that will be the topic of the lecture,” she said. She added that she expects to see a large number of students in the audience on Monday night.

Eugenides found continued success when his first novel, 1993’s The Virgin Suicides, was adapted for film by director Sofia Coppola. In 2003 Eugenides won the Pulitzer Prize with his second novel: Middlesex, a multi-generational story of a family of Greek immigrants centered on the experience of Calliope, a hermaphrodite growing up in Detroit.

Eugenides grew up in Detroit and is of Greek-American ancestry. He studied at Brown University and received his M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Stanford University. He is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University.

Student tickets are $10 with an ID and are available by phone at 412-622-8866 or at the Carnegie Music Hall Box Office on the night of the program.

Pittsburgh Leadership Conference designed for Zogby’s new generation

Pittsburgh Leadership Conference designed for Zogby’s new generation

September 24, 2012

By Justin Karter

Published on Point Park News Service


A conference, scheduled for late September in Pittsburgh, hopes to reach a new generation of politically independent and internationally connected leaders, termed “globals” by well-known pollster John Zogby.

The second annual Student Empowership Conference, held at Carlow University, is designed for young, engaged leaders, described by Zogby in his new book, “The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream.”

Global Solutions Pittsburgh, a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness of international issues, and “Get Involved!”, a local civic engagement organization, have worked together to create a conference that appeals to a generation who feel a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the increasingly polarized political environment.

In his book, Zogby describes globals as “far more likely than voters age 30 and over to identify themselves as politically “strictly independent,” saying that they are “determined to find a middle ground on the hot-button issues of the day and to decide each one on a case by case basis, not because their party leaders are urging them in one direction or the other.”

During a phone interview, Zogby, founder of polling firm Zogby International and best-selling author, discussed the unique leadership style of the globals generation.

“What impresses me the most is the horizontal orientation of globals decision making,” he said.

“Traditionally, we have been schooled to move issues up a chain of command and, fundamentally, that system doesn’t work for a variety of reasons,” Zogby said. “(The program is) based on a vertical system where every layer involves people trying to sustain themselves; trying to solve problems in a way that protects their job, which leads to disconnect and gridlock.”

Zogby praised the Globals’ ability to “use networking in problem solving, saying, “If there is an issue, they crowd source it. It’s egalitarian and it’s pure” because it “gets right at the source of a resolution.”

As an employer, college, or organization “it’s important not to try to teach [globals] how to function within an existing institution but instead to adjust your institution to a world of people who have no self-interest except to get the job done,” he said.

Tom Baker, president of Baker Leadership and founder and chief program officer of Get Involved!, agreed with Zogby on the non-partisan nature of young leaders.

“It appears to me that getting things done is the top priority for college students and young professionals, more so than party politics or rhetoric.”

The Empowership Conference will be “a terrific mixture of members of different parties coming together and leaving partisan bickering behind in the best interest of worthwhile causes and organizations.”

Dan Giovannelli, executive director of Global Solutions Pittsburgh recognizes that the young people they are hoping to reach have “grown up with nasty politics.” The Empowership Conference aims to give young people “the tools they need to engage the issues they’re passionate about. We want them to make informed decisions but do not tell them what decisions to make. I think young people appreciate that there is not an agenda.”

A major tool in the globals toolkit is social media. Giovannelli hopes that the conference will teach young people “already savvy on Facebook and Twitter” how to use their skills to engage others in the issues, from international issues such as Syria to local issues such as urban education.
Giovanelli said he admits that sometimes those in the non-profit industry do a “lousy job of expressing why the issue is important,” often finding themselves at one of two extremes— “the guilt inducing emotional appeal or statistics and facts with no emotion.”

The keynote speaker, Ali McMutrie, has a story that evinces the characteristics of the globals generation. McMutrie, a Pittsburgh native, spent years working in an orphanage in Haiti and, following the 2010 earthquake, started her own non-profit Haitian Families First. Both the speaker and the workshops are meant to help young people effectively spread their passion across their already well-developed international networks by teaching them how to tell their stories effectively.

The stories that they create and spread are likely to find a receptive audience. Zogby describes this new generation of leaders as possessing a “global empathy,” saying, “While First Globals might not be more able than other age cohorts to point to Darfur on a map, they at least know there is a Darfur, and they care what’s happening there … this is a group that has been trained by its own segment of popular culture to look outward, beyond America’s borders.”

Anyone interested in attending the Sept. 29 conference can find more information and register online at globalsolutionspgh.org.