My Bureau moment happened in my first year, when I won disability benefits for my client James*. James had a history of severe physical and emotional abuse throughout his childhood. As a result, he suffered from debilitating mental health issues including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. James had also been a manual laborer during his youth and injured his back such that he was now in chronic severe pain. His disabilities left him totally unable to work.

Photo by Emma Raviv

When we met, James was seeking disability benefits at a turning point in his life: he was trying to reenter society after a period of incarceration, struggling to remain drug free andsober and hoping to move towards independence, but the odds were against him. He had no income, no social supports, and was homeless, moving around from shelter to shelter every few days without any stability. I advocated for James at his administrative hearing for disability benefits: we won him benefits going forward and a backpay amount of over $20,000.

Working with folks seeking disability benefits — some of the most marginalized folks we see — can be challenging. Folks traumatized by abuse, deep in depression, or simply without a phone or fixed address are understandably hard to work with. But knowing that I helped James in his first step towards independence — a little bit of income, a chance to get on housing lists and a step towards stability — was one of my most rewarding moments at the Bureau.

*Name changed

Student attorneys in the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau have the opportunity, in addition to their primary practice areas, to represent workers in wage and hour disputes in Massachusetts courts.  Over the past few years, the practice group has grown significantly and begun to develop dynamic partnerships with community organizations in order to better serve and more comprehensively understand the needs of our clients.  The wage and hour practice, moreover, helps to illustrate some of the aspects of the Bureau that I have come to appreciate most over the course of my two years.

Photo by Emma Raviv

First, the work we do in the wage and hour practice is deeply emotionally fulfilling. Perhaps my greatest success as an attorney at the Bureau has been in a wage and hour case on which I worked over the course of thirteen months.  Our client, whom I first met in January of 2012, is an undocumented immigrant who had been chronically underpaid over the course of ten years while working under the table as a janitor.  Given the client’s immigration status, the fact that he did not speak English, and his unfamiliarity with wage and hour law, our client had been entirely unable to exercise his rights.  After our initial investigation of his claim, we agreed to take the case, at which point we calculated the potential value of his claims, secured a “right to sue” letter from the Attorney General’s office, and, eventually, entered into a negotiated settlement with his former employer for $30,000.

Moreover, my casework in the wage and hour group has been the most innovative and creative work I have done in law school.  I thoroughly love my home in the housing practice, but the relative youth of the wage and hour practice group means that often an issue that we confront in any particular case will represent the first time that the Bureau has ever faced an issue of that nature.  Admittedly, there is a degree to which this can feel daunting, especially given the breadth of “employment law” as a topic and the various overlapping and intersecting regimes of agency law, the law of corporations, as well as the dual state-federal character of the wage and hour regime, but it also means that the work I have done contributes to future generations of Bureau attorneys doing wage and hour work in a substantive way that is simply not possible in an area where the Bureau has the degree of expertise that it does in housing and family law.

The wage and hour group has given me a level of independence in my work that I have found nowhere else in law school, matched with an unparalleled capacity to achieve meaningful, tangible change for my clients.

A Hague Convention petition is filed by the left-behind parent in the country where the child is currently residing, here, the United States. To establish a prima facie case warranting the return of the child, the petitioner must establish: 1) that the country they are asking the child to be returned to was in fact the habitual residence of the child prior to wrongful removal or retention; 2) that the removal of the child breached the left-behind parent’s custodial rights; and 3) that the left-behind parent was exercising their parental rights at the time of the breach. Additionally, the petition should be filed within one year of wrongful removal or retention. There are five affirmative defenses available to the responding parent. Of these five, the one relevant to our case was that the child has become well-settled to his or her new surroundings. We had to prove that the one-year period to file the petition had not lapsed, and/or that even if it had, the child was still not well-settled and the left-behind parent should not be barred from being heard on their petition.

We worked tirelessly for the two weeks leading up to the evidentiary hearing. Simply wrapping our minds around the law was a task in and of itself. Trying to gather evidence — from the United States as well as our client’s country — in order to rebut the affirmative defenses of the opposing party was a logistical tour de force. A conference call with the State Department revealed that they were quite impressed with our progress, so much so that they want to send us more cases arising under the Hague Convention. Apparently, finding lawyers who specialize in this area of law and are willing to offer representation at reduced rates or pro bono is not the easiest task. We welcomed the opportunity.

The outcome for our client was better than we expected, though not at all achieved in the manner we expected. After hearing partial testimony, the judge urged the parties to attempt to reach an agreement. Though we were initially skeptical of the probability of a negotiated resolution, the parties did come to an agreement thanks to the incredibly skilled and multi-talented guardian ad litem who was assigned to the case. Less than a week after the trial, the child and our client returned to Colombia on good terms with the parent residing in the United States and with plans in place for future visits. We could not have asked for a better outcome.

November 18, 2011

Contact: Sam Levine
Telephone: (617) 495-4408
Email: salevine@jd12.law.harvard.edu

SECOND ANNUAL COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS CONFERENCE DRAWS MORE THAN 150 PARTICIPANTS FROM 20 STATES

Experts, Activists, and Students Convene to Develop Strategies that Protect Families and Communities from Foreclosure

Cambridge, MA: For the second year in a row, the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and Project No One Leaves hosted a national conference of students, activists, attorneys, and organizers to discuss innovative, community-based responses to the foreclosure crisis. This year’s conference drew more than 150 participants, including representatives from twenty states, eight law schools, and three chapters of Project No One Leaves.

The conference combined panels led by national experts, intensive workshops and trainings, presentations by artists and filmmakers, and an opportunity for participants to take part in a citywide canvass to provide information and advice to Bostonians in foreclosure. City Life/Vida Urbana also led participants in an impromptu rally for economic justice in Harvard Square.

The conference was organized by the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and Project No One Leaves. The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is a student-run legal services center that offers free civil legal services to low-income people throughout greater Boston. Project No One Leaves is a national organization of students and activists that aims to empower citizens in foreclosed properties to protect their homes and communities through grassroots organizing, legal education, and civic engagement. These organizations work in a coalition with Greater Boston Legal Services, the Legal Services Center, City Life/Vida Urbana and Boston Community Capital to protect families and communities throughout greater Boston from the devastating effects of foreclosure.

The efforts of the Boston coalition to protect homes and communities from foreclosure have been featured in The Nation, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, PBS and the CBS Evening News. This year’s conference will also be featured in an upcoming documentary about grassroots efforts to fight eviction.