we stand with 2018 Annual Report Our Mission Table of Contents Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation From the Executive Director: Marty Ellin 4 (AVLF) is a nonprofit that stands with Who We Serve: AVLF At-A-Glance 5 low-income Atlantans as they demand safe and stable housing, insist on fair We Stand Together: A Cohesive Unit 8 pay, and break free from intimate partner We Stand with Tenants: Safe and Stable Homes 11 abuse. We are the largest provider of pro bono legal services in Atlanta, and Letter from Safe and Stable Homes Director: Cole Thaler 12 we leverage the collective power of our Volunteer Story: Jeffrey Tompkins 14 professional community to provide free She Walked into Court with an AVLF Army 16 legal and social services to our clients when they need it most. Safe and Stable Homes Project by the Numbers 18 We Stand with Survivors: Safe and Stable Families 19 With teams at Fulton County Courthouse and deeply embedded in Atlanta’s under-served Letter from Safe and Stable Families Director: Jamie Perez 20 communities,we meet our clients where Volunteer Story: Laura Smithman and Margaret Flatt 22 they are, geographically and emotionally, and address not just their legal needs, but A Message of Hope: Safe and Stable Families Client Story 24 whatever else they need to thrive. Safe and Stable Families Project by the Numbers 26 For over 40 years, Atlanta’s brightest legal We Stand with Our Volunteers 29 talents have volunteered their time to Volunteer Story: Christen Morgan 30 help our clients in their fight for justice— Atlanta Bar Association Celebrating Service Awards 31 and have found that they get a great deal back in return. As these lawyers lift the We Stand with Our Community 34 community, their personal and professional Collaboration: Our Partners 36 lives—and the lives of our clients—are enriched in equal measure. Together, we’re We Stand with Our Funders 40 working to create safer and more stable Events: A Year of Festivities 44 families, homes and communities, and a more fair and equitable Atlanta. Thank You to Our 2018 Donors 48 Board of Directors and AVLF Staff 53 What’s Next 55 2 3 From the Executive Director Who We Serve Most of AVLF’s clients are Fulton County residents who have an aggregate household income With pride, we present the 2018 AVLF Annual Report. at 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or less. The majority of clients (84%) served last year were female. Of those who identified their race, 77% were Black/African-American, 13% were white, and the remainder identified as other, Native American, Latino, multi-racial, and Asian. The successes of AVLF’s many pro bono programs What comes next? We know that the future always depend on partnership. Our work integrates comes toward us in exactly the spirit in which we These clients are served through the following programs: the time and talent of lawyers, grant managers, approach it. At AVLF we approach the future with accountants, social workers, court officials, optimism, with insistence, with commitment, and philanthropic officers, and many, many others with hands and hearts wide open. to help AVLF create safe and stable homes and families by inspiring lawyers to fight for justice. As we approach our next forty years of service, Safe and Stable Homes Project: we step forward with humanity, dignity, and In 2018, AVLF began our 39th year of integrity. We’ll stand with the smart, dedicated operation. There is no wrong time for careful citizens of Atlanta to make a priority of lifting • Saturday Lawyer Program reflection, but especially in anticipation of such those in our community who need it most. We’ll a milestone, I spent much of the year asking a find ways to bring top-notch legal services to Unscrupulous landlords who rent to low- attorneys stand up to those landlords to two-part question. any Atlantan who needs it. And we’ll do it with income tenants too often disregard their demand repairs, to address conditions that are the help of our partners. legal duty to make repairs because they making children sick, to extricate tenants from How did we get here? At AVLF, we have been think they will not be held accountable. The bad leases, or to fight back in eviction cases. curious, honest, intentional, and capable We are ready! Enjoy reading the 2018 Annual Saturday Lawyer Program pairs tenants with AVLF volunteers also help tenants recover listeners. After asking, widely and frequently, Report, and then please consider standing with volunteer attorneys to address circumstances money when their personal belongings are “How may we help our city?”, our active us in 2019 as we add to the common good in in which the landlord is not honoring the destroyed by mold, leaks, or infestations, or listening made people want to tell us, “Here is innovative and consequential ways. law’s requirements of them. AVLF’s volunteer lost in illegal evictions. what it is like to be me”. Sincerely, And with the information that has come from clients sharing the stories of their existence and • Eviction Defense Program their need for legal help, and lawyers speaking to their desire to have a meaningful pro bono About 40,000 evictions are filed in Fulton in a matter of hours – with trained, highly- Marty Ellin experience, we have formed programmatic County every year, and less than 2% of skilled eviction defense attorneys to represent responses that lifted—and saved—lives. tenants served with an eviction Complaint them in court in their critical time of need. have legal representation at their hearing; AVLF secures a positive outcome for nearly This Annual Report makes it clear that we are the vast majority of those tenants facing 100% of all eviction clients our volunteers still asking, still listening, and still shaping pro near-immediate dislocation are low-income represent. We seek to increase dramatically the bono legal responses to what we continue to and unrepresented. AVLF’s Eviction Defense number of tenants who are well-informed and learn about the evolving needs of our rather Program provides those tenants – sometimes represented by counsel. large neighborhood. 4 5 Safe and Stable Homes Project Safe and Stable Families Project: (continued): • Safe Families Office • Housing Court Assistance Center When a person who has been victimized by in conjunction with Partnership Against intimate partner violence seeks assistance to Domestic Violence) and was named a national Established in partnership with Fulton County, Volunteer attorneys and law students under the obtain a temporary protective order in Fulton Best Practices model by the American Bar the Housing Court Assistance Center provides supervision of an attorney meet with tenants County, they are referred to the Safe Families Association’s Domestic Violence Commission. free legal advice to Fulton County tenants to explain their options under Georgia law and Office (SFO). The SFO is Fulton County’s Volunteer attorneys and staff walk victims whose landlords have filed for an eviction in an provide limited advice. courthouse-based, lawyer-staffed domestic through the process of obtaining a protective attempt to remove a tenant from a dwelling. violence legal services clinic (operated order and represent them in court if necessary. • Standing with Our Neighbors Program • Family Law Program This effort focuses AVLF’s considerable View, and Peoplestown). The most recent team The Family Law Program provides deeper legal family law attorneys advise and represent volunteer resources on housing conditions and launched at Hollis Innovation Academy on the services for intimate partner violence survivors clients as needed, and a SFO-based AVLF- stability issues plaguing specific neighborhoods. Westside – in partnership with the Arthur M. (e.g., 12-month protective orders, legitimation, staff social worker helps address barriers to Drawing on poverty, public health, and school- Blank Family Foundation and the Westside custody disputes, and/or divorce). Volunteer obtaining true safety and independence. system data, AVLF identified initial zones Future Fund. Each zone has been “adopted” of focus and has embedded three teams. by multiple law firm partners whose lawyers The first, in partnership with Purpose Built perform the legal work under AVLF’s intensive Schools, began in Thomasville Heights and training and supervision. The goal is to leverage has expanded through the Carver Cluster of volunteer legal work and partnerships to make schools. The second, with support from the a measurable impact on the health and stability Legacy Pro Bono Programs Annie E. Casey Civic Site, serves Neighborhood of the housing stock and, in turn, on the Planning Unit (NPU)-V (Mechanicsville, community and the families therein. AVLF has several smaller programs that fill legal consultation with an expert in probate Pittsburgh, Adair Park, Summerhill, Capitol critical needs in the community. Our Saturday matters for individuals who have lost a family Lawyer Program volunteer attorneys primarily member. Our Bankruptcy Program aids those assist tenants, but also help the working poor seeking to file a Chapter 7 petition. The whose employers wrongfully withhold or Dollars for Judgments Program helps our reduce paychecks. The Guardian ad Litem clients collect on judgments they have won, Program provides trained Guardians to help while our Low Income Creditor Assistance the Court determine the best interest of a Program provides free legal assistance when child in a high-conflict custody battle. The the defendant/debtor runs to bankruptcy Probate Information Center provides a free court to evade justice. 6 7 We Stand Together Ms. Davis* had been to the Safe Families Office (SFO) several times, starting in 2013, and in 2016, social worker Camille Millar connected her with partner support groups - Partnership Against Domestic Violence, Cascade United Methodist Church, Shalom Bayit, and Grady Nia Project.