Pro Bono Service: An Honor, Not a Burden

By: Nilufar Abdi-Tabari,

Nilufar Abdi-Tabari is a family law attorney
practicing in Roswell, Georgia.  She volunteers every
Monday for the Domestic Violence Program
of the AVLF in the Safe Families Office, aiding victims of
intimate partner violence to obtain Ex-Parte and
Twelve Month Protective Orders

Attorney at Law

“Don’t worry! I’m happy. I’m happy because I am finally free.” In a surprising reversal of roles, I realized “T”, my client, was trying to comfort … She must have seen the tears I had tried to blink away.
For almost a year, I have been spending my Mondays at the Safe Families Office in the Fulton County Courthouse, where clients are provided assistance in obtaining Ex-Parte and Twelve-Month Protective Orders for intimate partner violence. It was on one of these Mondays that I had the privilege of meeting T, a beautiful young woman with a bright smile and a bubbly sense of humor.  The story behind that smile is one that will forever resonate with me.

In T’s case, the abuse began sixteen years earlier, when her mother gave the abuser access to T in exchange for drugs. Since then, T had endured years of extremely violent physical, emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of her abuser, a man 18 years her senior. Today, as a liberated woman, the countless scars and bruises on her body provide a road map to her previous years of physical abuse.

The scars on her ankle direct us to the episode of her jump from a second story window in a vain effort to escape her knife-yielding abuser, only to break her ankle when she landed, leaving her unable to escape. Her abuser then took her back into their home and kept her there for three weeks, waiting for the bruises on her body to heal before taking her to the hospital to be treated for her broken bones. The faded bruises on her neck lead to her eventual escape, a desperate run to a local post office after forty-eight hours of constant physical abuse. This journey of abuse and violence culminated in T’s arrival at the Safe Families Office, a refuge and place of aid for women in T’s situation.

As she finished her story, she looked at me and smiled. Against all odds, T was experiencing happiness because, for the first time in 16 years, she was free from abuse—regardless of the journey that lay ahead of her, she had successfully left her past behind. I could feel her joy and hope shining through the fading bruises. In that moment, I realized what a privilege it was to be able to stand beside her and provide some ease, comfort and assistance as she sought a protective order.

Through this encounter and many more like it, I have come to realize that providing pro bono services to the many victims that come through the Domestic Violence Program of the AVLF in the Safe Families Office is not only an invaluable service to these clients, but also a remarkable honor for me as a young attorney. At the Safe Families Office, I have found both a community of colleagues and friends among the many amazing attorneys with whom I have had the honor of working. And on occasion, I have been blessed by the comforting word and smile from those most in need of the same.

Even a $500 Win Can Change Lives 

By: Andre Ross

Associate, Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton

Reprinted with generous permission of the author and the Daily Report 

Published 01/13/2014

Over the past 18 months, I have been fortunate enough to assist with two matters for the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, both of which came to a successful resolution, and one of which was particularly meaningful in my career as a young attorney.

In June 2012, I participated in AVLF's Saturday Lawyer Program, which connects legal professionals with low-income individuals. I met a woman who had been evicted from her rental home after the landlord failed to pay the mortgage and the bank foreclosed on the property, leaving her scrambling to find housing. Despite causing the foreclosure and eviction, the landlord then refused to return the client's $500 security deposit. I agreed to help the woman recover her security deposit.

Working in a big law firm, it can become east to lose sight of the forest for the trees. For many people working at a law firm in Atlanta, poverty is an abstract concept. For better or worse, it is what we glimpse out the windows on the way to the airport, or what we read about in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I am as susceptible to this critique as anyone, but I have come to see that AVLF is an avenue by which those of us who are more fortunate can understand, in a real and powerful way, what it means to have less, and, more importantly, what we can do to assist others.

The case I handled for AVLF, although a dispute over only $500, meant the world to my client. To her, with no steady source of income, the security deposit was the difference between being able to pay her bills and having the lights shut off. After rounds of demand letters, the case went to trial in July 2013, with the landlord-defendant choosing to hire counsel rather than pay the $500 my client demanded. After a bench trial, the court awarded my client her full damages, recognizing that she was the victim of a scheme to take advantage of someone perceived as ignorant and helpless. As we left the courtroom with her young son in tow, she hugged me enthusiastically and thanked me for spending my time and energy on her "little old case." That kind of client feedback is what AVLF brings to being a lawyer in Atlanta.

AVLF's Saturday Lawyer Program, like its many efforts around the metro area, helps give context to what it means to be an attorney. It allows those of us with the resources and acumen to work within the system to help those who lack those same skills and opportunities. To many who read this, $500 is nice to have but not necessary. To those such as my client served by AVLF, $500 can truly mean the world.

I learned firsthand that being a resource to those who otherwise have none is rewarding on both a personal and professional level, and it is the kind of feeling that everyone should ensure is part of their practice. AVLF is how you make that happen.

Read more: http://www.dailyreportonline.com/id=1202637621543/First-Person%3A-Even-a-%24500-Win-Can-Change-Lives#ixzz2uSOiUtmW