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Over the last three decades, Maryland has built one of the most robust, innovative and effective civil legal services systems in the U.S., in large part because of the support and leadership of the Maryland Legal Services Corp. Right now, ...

Back in the news is Maryland’s cash bail system, long criticized for unfairness to low-income people stuck in jail waiting for trial while the affluent post bail and go home. Last fall, Maryland’s Attorney General Brian E. Frosh opined that ...

Heartly House is Frederick County’s only program that provides comprehensive services to victims of domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault. Services include emergency shelter, individual counseling, group counseling, an abuser intervention program, and a 24-hour hotline, which includes crisis ...

Every December, the Maryland Legal Services Corp. honors the best of the best: the folks who dedicate their professional lives to helping low-income citizens with free civil legal aid. They come from a group of professionals who are underpaid, work ...

What flashes through your mind when someone mentions Montgomery County? No doubt its wealth, natural beauty and proximity to Washington top the list (along with, maybe, those epic traffic jams on Interstate 270). But what about poverty? In spite of ...

Tagged with: Joe Surkieiwicz Montgomery County pro bono

In “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond describes the path from eviction to homelessness in Milwaukee, where he chronicled the lives of low-income families living on the edge. It’s same path for the low-income ...

Now that the charges have been dropped against the police officers in the Freddie Gray case, how can you not conclude that the justice system utterly failed? Which, naturally, raises another question: Is there a better way? Actually, there is: ...

Tagged with: Joe Surkiewicz

Imagine getting a $3,000 bill from the IRS, which insists your income was higher than reported on your tax return. And then think how much worse it would be if you were low-income and not a native English speaker. “A ...

  How can pro bono attorneys make a difference in the lives of young patients with neurodevelopmental and other disorders of the brain? For Jennifer Brennan, it was by helping an 11-year-old girl with a major brain injury hospitalized at ...

Tagged with: Joe Surkiewicz

At next month’s 8th Annual Veterans’ Legal Assistance Conference & Training, private lawyers can catch up on the latest in helping veterans secure disability benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. That extends from the basics all the way ...