Legal Aid Matters

VISTA Martin Martinez and Dan Lindsey from consumer chat with Nubia about the Bankruptcy Help Desk.

Happy Women's History Month! LAF's own Kathryn Socha shares her work on the women veterans project.

Episode 10: Attorney Myka Held from Children and Family Services chats with Nubia about LAF's CLASP project.

Michelle Weinberg of LAF's consumer practice groups chats consumer law in Chicago and the work she does advocating for seniors. 

In this episode of Legal Aid Matters, Lisa Palumbo director of our Immigrants and Worker's Rights Practice Group, interviews our show's host, Nubia Willman. 

The LAF Ombudsman project advocates for senior citizens living in assisted living and skilled nursing facilities. Listen as Nubia, Robert and Suzanne discuss the challenges low-income seniors face when they require long-term care, as well as strategies to prepare for your own family's needs.

In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month this October, Caitlin Cervenka of LAF's Children and Families Practice Group joins Nubia in conversation for this episode. They discuss the strategies Caitlin and her colleagues employ to advocate for survivors of violence in child custody and divorce proceedings, how low-income survivors experience violence differently than others, and, as always why legal aid matters to them.If you listened to the credits and you're looking for a link to purchase tickets for LAF's annual Autumn Affair, here it is!

Regina Hernandez is a staff attorney with LAF's volunteer services unit, where she recruits and manages volunteers to stretch our services to as many clients as possible. She also runs our community legal clinics, where several times a month we serve large numbers of people with free, walk-in meetings with attorneys who advise on legal problems in the neighborhoods our clients call home.In their conversation, Nubia and Regina talk about the successes and challenges of the clinic model, the great lengths Regina and her colleagues go to to ensure as many people as possible receive LAF's help, and how we can all work together to help close the justice gap.

In this episode, Nubia sits down with her colleague within LAF’s Immigrants and Workers’ rights Practice Group, Jon Delozano, whose work focuses on removing legal barriers that prevent low-wage workers from getting or keeping a job. He and Nubia discuss the challenges of proving workplace discrimination and how the #MeToo movement has affected his work on behalf of women who suffer sexual harassment in the workplace.

National Teacher’s Academy (NTA) is a high-performing (Level 1+) elementary school on Chicago’s near south side, serving students who are 80% African American and 80% low-income. In February, Chicago Public School approved a plan to close NTA and convert the campus into a new high school, despite the school’s remarkable success and despite the passionate protest of parents and students at community meetings.Attorneys at LAF and Chicago Lawyer’s Committee For Civil Rights (CLC) have partnered to represent students, parents, and community groups in a lawsuit to halt the closure of NTA. Nubia sits down with Ashley Fretthold and Kate Gladson of LAF’s Education Law project as well as Candace Moore of CLC to talk about the lawsuit and the importance of preserving high-performing public schools.Learn more about NTA by visiting WeAreNTA.com or by following them on Twitter @WeAreNTA.Read the University of Chicago study about the 2013 CPS closures that Ashley mentions.Follow LAF on Facebook, on Twitter @ChicagoLAF and on Instagram @lafchicagoDon't forget to subscribe to the show!

In today’s episode, we hear from Larry Wood, Director LAF's Housing Practice Group. Larry has spent the last 28 years at LAF, and in that time become a leading expert on housing-related issues that affect people in poverty, especially those residing in public housing.Nubia and Larry's conversation touches on Matthew Desmond's Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted, how housing instability causes poverty, and how LAF intervenes to prevent homelessness by stopping unfair evictions. Larry, who also happens to be most decorated New Yorker caption contest winner of all time, also shares a little advice for aspiring humorists.

In the debut episode of Legal Aid Matters, we hear from LAF CEO & Executive Director John Gallo about how he wound up in his current role, what he's learned in his first year on the job, and why he's so passionate about legal aid.