Marlene served as the first Executive Director of Senior Citizen Judicare Project in 1978, the predecessor to SeniorLAW Center. She had worked for 3 years prior to her hiring as a Domestic Relations Attorney at Community Legal Services and felt “very lucky” to have this unique opportunity to serve older Philadelphians in a groundbreaking project.
Before stepping in to help launch and lead the new Judicare Project, Marlene had never served older clients except grandparents trying to gain custody of their grandchildren. “The poor elderly were grossly unrepresented within the legal system,” notes Marlene.
Judicare “was unique” in that it launched one of the first pro bono and CLE projects in Philadelphia, preceding the founding of VIP and many other pro bono programs, with whom we now proudly partner.
“We had fabulous assistance by everyone to make this project a success,” notes Marlene, including the Philadelphia Bar Association, Community Legal Services, and Richard Weiner, Esquire, founding Board Chair. Social Workers at senior citizen centers and housing projects were our main source of information on the problems that our early clients were facing, and were excellent partners to Judicare and its leaders, as they continue to be today, as part of an expanded aging network.
Marlene left Judicare to start a private practice and served for several years as a panel attorney, as volunteers were called then. She then worked for many years at U.S. Healthcare as in-house counsel, in the public sector in various capacities, including nonprofit administration, as a grant officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts, and in the area of children’s literacy improvement, bringing her career full circle in the life cycle.
We are proud to honor the first Executive Director of Judicare, the predecessor of SeniorLAW Center, by inducting her into our inaugural class of the SeniorLAW Center Hall of Fame.
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