Welcome to
the 2016 Vermont Poverty Law Fellow, Mairead O’Reilly! Mairead is our fifth Vermont Poverty Law
Fellow, funded entirely by generous donations from over 300 Vermont lawyers, law
firms and organizations to the annual Vermont Bar Foundation Access to Justice
Campaign. Originally spearheaded by the
late Joan Wing, attorney Spencer Knapp and former VBA Executive Director, Bob
Paolini, among others, and through herculean efforts of all of the Access to
Justice Campaign volunteers, the Vermont Poverty Law Fellowship program is now welcoming
its fifth two-year fellow. The
fellowship was designed to address serious unmet legal needs of Vermont’s
low-income community.
In 2008,
Grace Pazdan became the first Vermont Poverty Law Fellow, focusing on the
foreclosure crisis and providing legal representation to Vermonters facing
foreclosure. During her tenure, she was
instrumental in creating Vermont’s mandatory foreclosure mediation statute and
training attorneys to assist defendants.
Jessica Radbord then became the second fellow, focusing on housing
issues, particularly with respect to rental housing safety. Because her fellowship coincided with
flooding both in May of 2011 and with Irene’s late August, 2011 flooding,
Jessica represented those most affected by the storms with their housing needs,
having a tremendous impact on Vermont’s disaster recovery procedures.
Jay Diaz
became Vermont’s third Poverty Law Fellow, focusing on promoting educational
access, stability and equity for Vermont’s low-income children. Throughout 2012-2014, he worked tirelessly in
an effort to close the opportunity gap facing students from lower-income
households. In 2014, Katelyn Atwood
became the fourth fellow, focusing on Veterans' rights. Not only was Katelyn able to assist Vermont
Veterans directly with unmet legal needs, she did a significant amount of
outreach and training, raising awareness regarding the needs of Vermont’s
50,000 Veterans and training attorneys to be able to assist them.
The Access
to Justice Campaign is proud to be able to fund this year’s fifth fellow,
Mairead O’Reilly, who will be focusing on the broad impact of Vermont’s opioid
epidemic. The epidemic has far-reaching
effects on housing, education and health care and has caused great stress to
our courts, agencies and schools.
Mairead will be working on identifying, developing and implementing
solutions, including systemic reform initiatives, to help addicted and
recovering clients get their lives on track and contribute to their communities
once again.
Not only was
Ms. O’Reilly a Full Tuition Merit Scholar at the University of Connecticut
School of Law, she spent her law school terms working in the field of access to
justice, at the Greater Hartford Legal Aid, The University of Connecticut
Poverty Law Clinic, the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, and the Domestic
Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project in Washington, D.C. She will no doubt continue the outstanding
work of our poverty law fellows-past while carving her own positive and
enduring path of change.
The hundreds
of donors to the Access to Justice Campaign can see real value and impact of
their contributions. This is
crowdfunding at its finest – having a great idea, funding a great idea and
putting the great idea into tangible action!
How about adding another sense to the mix? Donors can get a taste of the great idea (in
the form of a craft beer, wine or spirit) by coming to any one (or all) of the
upcoming regional Justice Fest events!
Mairead
came by last week to meet with VBA Executive Director Teri Corsones and VBF
Executive Director Deb Bailey.
2016 Vermont Poverty Law Fellow Mairead O'Reilly
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