What 10 Years in Legal Aid Actually Taught Me
Reflections on running pro bono programs, what actually moves the needle for access to justice, and where the field is heading.
Read more →Legal program professional with 10+ years in nonprofit legal aid, pro bono coordination, and court-adjacent case administration. Bilingual (English / Spanish), Hartford, CT.
I've spent 10+ years at the intersection of legal aid, operations, & community — making sure people who need legal help can actually get it. Based in central CT, I serve as a Coordinator for the Pro Bono unit at Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut (SLS CT). In this role, I facilitate multiple Private Attorney Involvement (PAI) referral programs, including the Security Deposit legal clinic, the Divorce legal clinic, the Call4Law Consumer Hotline, and the CBA Bankruptcy Panel program — all concurrently.
A former licensed REALTOR®, I bring real working knowledge of residential transactions and asset documentation into legal aid contexts — particularly housing & bankruptcy. I'm bilingual in English / Spanish, and I'm actively building toward privacy, compliance & legal technology credentials.
Panel Administrator for the court-established D. Conn. Bankruptcy Pro Bono Program — processing Chapter 7 applications, verifying financial eligibility, routing cases to panel attorneys, and tracking caseloads against the four-matter annual cap.
Manage and build content on Connecticut's statewide pro bono portal — posting SLS cases, drafting anonymized case descriptions, routing partner communications, and recruiting law firms, bar associations, and law schools.
Launched and administered Connecticut's ABA Free Legal Answers virtual advice clinic. Managed up to 30 new pro bono cases per month through the Call4Law telephone advice program across housing, family law, consumer finance, and disability matters.
Recruited and onboarded volunteer attorneys via CBA Pro Bono Connect; guided clients through the Pardon Acceptance Program; prepared and submitted expungement applications to the CT Board of Pardons & Paroles.
Reflections on running pro bono programs, what actually moves the needle for access to justice, and where the field is heading.
Read more →From LegalServer to PandaDoc to AI — a practitioner's view on how tools are reshaping nonprofit legal aid operations.
Read more →From the frontlines of legal aid — what I've seen working with unhoused and recently evicted clients in Connecticut, and where systemic change has to start.
Read more →A practical guide to using timelines as a teaching and self-study tool — how to structure them, what to include, and why sequencing events visually unlocks comprehension in ways that notes alone can't.
Read more →Loot boxes, daily streaks, spin-to-win mechanics — gaming and gambling have quietly merged. A closer look at the design patterns being used, who they target, and what we should be talking about more openly.
Read more →