SeniorLAW Center is proud to hold leadership roles in Philadelphia’s nationally renowned public interest community and to have served as planners and presenters for Philadelphia’s Annual Public Interest Law Day on December 10th, 2015, which brings our stellar community together with leaders in pro bono, the courts and the Bar who care about access to justice. SeniorLAW Center staff attorney Jeni Wright presented as a panelist on the opening CLE plenary, “Making Limited Representation Models Effective while Meeting Ethical Requirements,” examining how limited representation legal services models such as Help Centers, HelpLines and court-based projects move the need forward on access to justice and examining the simultaneous need for additional resources for extended representation. Her fellow panelists were: Renee L. Danser, Esq., District Court Administrator for the 43rd Judicial District of Pennsylvania, Prof. Rebecca L. Sandefur, Associate Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and panel moderator Prof. Louis S. Rulli, a practice professor of law and Director of Clinical Programs at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Jeni says this about her participation on the panel: “As a front-lines practitioner, it was an honor to have SeniorLAW Center represented in this panel and listen to the insights of fellow panelists, as well as audience members. As a proud member of the Philadelphia public interest community, it’s exciting to be practicing during a time when there is such an active push for Civil Gideon. I strongly believe if someone is at risk of losing the roof over their head, their children, their income, or is a survivor of abuse, there should be state-funded legal assistance. I look forward to participating in more discussion of the challenges of limited representation, because it’s only by discussing the challenges that we make it most effective for the seniors we serve.”
Jeni has been working with SeniorLAW Center since 2006. She has served on a variety of projects here, including the Pennsylvania SeniorLAW HelpLine, staffing the collaborative court-based Landlord/Tenant Legal Help Center, and is happy to be currently working on our Department of Justice-funded project, “Strengthening the Economic Security of Older Victims of Domestic Violence.”