The New Faces at AVLF

The New Faces at AVLF

Carey Kersten

Carey Kersten is AVLF's new Development Director. A native of South Texas, Carey has lived in Atlanta for nearly five years and was most recently a part of the technical proposal writing team at AirWatch. Prior to that, Carey worked at Sutherland in the client and professional development department.

Carey holds Bachelor's and Master's of Arts degrees in English and Technical Communications from Texas State University, and she has over ten years of business development and marketing experience. She has run eight marathons (but keeps promising to quit) and loves to read and travel.

 

Cole Thaler 

Cole Thaler joins AVLF as our Director of Housing and Consumer Programs. Previously, he worked as a supervising staff attorney with Georgia Legal Services Program, where he represented low-income rural Georgians in cases including unemployment benefit appeals, protective orders, eviction defense, and food stamp appeals. In 2011, he won an injunction in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia requiring a public housing authority to lower the rent it was charging his disabled client.  

 

From 2005 through 2009, Cole worked for Lambda Legal, a national legal organization that works on behalf of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and those with HIV. As Lambda Legal's transgender rights attorney, Cole litigated a number of federal court cases around the country that advanced the rights of transgender people, including prisoners and youth.  In 2009, he received a Stonewall Bar Association award recognizing Outstanding Service to the Stonewall Community.

 

Cole co-authored "Serving All Communities: Providing Respectful and Competent Services to Low-Income LGBT Clients," published in the January-February 2014 issue of Clearinghouse Review:  Journal of Poverty Law and Policy. He was the lead author of "A Seat at the Table: Justice for SNAP Recipients Accused of Fraud in Georgia," published in Clearinghouse Review's September-October 2012 issue.

Cole received his bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Williams College and his J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.  

AVLF's New Creditors' Bankruptcy Program Goes Undefeated

Great news! Serving as an AVLF volunteer attorney, you have helped your client win her case - or are on the verge of doing so - against the slumlord (or recalcitrant employer, etc.) that took advantage. But uh oh, the scoundrel claim-debtor has filed for bankruptcy protection, and you know nothing about the bankruptcy process.

More great news! In partnership with the Bankruptcy Law Section of the Atlanta Bar Association, AVLF has established the Low Income Creditors Assistance Project (with the catchy acronym LICAP). Now, sophisticated bankruptcy practitioners will take these matters on a pro bono basis for AVLF clients holding claims or judgments where the defendant-debtor's files for bankruptcy.

LICAP is already a success. AVLF Saturday Lawyer program client Mr. D, a hardworking and highly skilled chef working for an unscrupulous restaurant owner, eventually had to quit because the owner kept underpaying him. In the end, the employer withheld his last few paychecks and Mr. D ended up out about $3,000 in wages - wages that were hard-earned and desperately needed to support his family.

Mr. D's case was first assigned to Taylor Tribble, an amazing attorney from Huff, Powell & Bailey. When her well-written demands were ignored, Taylor did not hesitate to file suit and fight for her client. Before a judgment could be obtained, the employer filed for bankruptcy, but only after transferring assets and fully staying in business. 

For too many years and in too many cases, a defendant-employer or landlord's bankruptcy filing marked the end of the road for AVLF clients; bankruptcy court was just not a forum with which we or our volunteers were familiar and the filing itself suggested hope for any collection on a judgment was lost. As AVLF's ground-breaking judgment collection project - Dollars for Judgments - has grown, we have seen even more judgment-debtor employers and landlords file for bankruptcy as they ran from our skilled collection attorneys. Those collection efforts typically stopped at the bankruptcy court door.

This is no longer the case. Bankruptcy Section Chair Alison Elko Franklin (who also helped develop the project with AVLF), of McKenna Long & Aldridge, teamed with top-flight accounting firm FTI Consulting - another AVLF partner under this program - to take on the inaugural LICAP case, filing a proof of claim for Mr. D. After one eventful and entertaining Creditor's Meeting in the bankruptcy court, the employer-debtor's attorney approached Alison about a settlement, and Mr. D was paid, in full and much faster than any traditional collection efforts would have achieved. While it is tempting to stop with this undefeated record, AVLF is excited to push forward with this new innovative program - and new cases are already in the wings! Alison and FTI have set the bar pretty high, but we are confident this project will continue to produce similar results and, in any event, will always make our clients know that no stone was left unturned in our efforts to get them justice. 

When clients show up at AVLF, they are often paralyzed by their circumstances; you can hear it in their voices. One volunteer recently reported that when she called her client after the successful collection on her judgment, she could literally hear the change in her client - the paralysis was giving way in favor of the start of a better future for her and her family. Through AVLF and the Bankruptcy Section of the Atlanta Bar Association's Low Income Creditors Assistance Project (LICAP), we have hopefully removed yet another barrier to getting all of our clients some justice and hope for a better future. To learn more or get involved, please contact our Deputy Director, Michael Lucas, at mlucas@avlf.org.    

Fighting for the Oppressed until They’re Made Whole

Fighting for the Oppressed until They’re Made Whole

By Ryan Locke, Criminal Defense Attorney, Locke Law Firm

As a criminal defense lawyer, I often receive frantic calls. A family member was just hauled away by the cops, or the news just said the caller has been indicted, or the police are at the door with a search warrant. But one call gave me pause: “The sheriff is on his way to my house,” sobbed the woman on the phone, “and he’s going to arrest me unless I pay the debt collector. What should I do?”

I’ve received similar versions of this call since then, and they all end the same way. The sheriff never comes and the debt collector—if he isn’t just an outright fraud—lays low before calling a few days later with more threats and demands.

I didn’t know about this side of debt collection before working with the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation. But then one Saturday morning I met Sandra, who had come to AVLF for help. She was being harassed by debt collectors for a supposedly unpaid store credit card. Sandra thought she had paid it off but wasn’t sure, so she asked them to send her proof of the debt. Instead, they filed suit.

AVLF had my back. They sent me their in-house treatise on debt collection defense and put me in touch with an expert debt-defense attorney. Pulling together language from their resources and my research, I filed an answer and counterclaim the day before court and hand-delivered it to the debt collector’s bewildered attorney on the courthouse steps. She offered a mutual dismissal of claims with prejudice.

As it turns out, the store that issued Sandra the credit card went bankrupt, and Sandra’s debt was sold to a holding company that resold the debt to the collector. But the debt collector only bought Sandra’s name and phone number; he didn’t buy the paperwork proving that a debt existed. We still don’t know if Sandra actually owed the store any money. But for Sandra, the calls stopped and that was a win.

I’ve continued working with AVLF, suing misbehaving landlords and demanding companies pay their workers. Two things remain constant for each case. First, you’re a member of the AVLF team. Michael Lucas, who oversees many of these cases, is an expert co-counsel advising on strategy and technique. One weekend, he even sent me an excited text about different ways to serve process on my out-of-state defendant.

Second, resolving the clients’ seemingly minor problems has a profound effect on their lives. A landlord releasing the security deposit is the difference between moving out of the moldy and cockroach-infested apartment or suffering through another month.

In my criminal defense practice, I stand with the accused and fight for their freedom. With AVLF, I fight for the poor and oppressed until they’re made whole. Please join me, and the hundreds of other volunteers, in this critical pursuit.     

Ryan Locke is the founder and managing member of the Locke Law Firm, specializing in criminal defense.