• Job: Lawyer, Atlanta

• What I do: Boy Scouts are known for helping little old ladies across the street. Donald S. Horace is a lawyer, and he helps little old ladies — and gentlemen — through legal traffic, including foreclosures, Social Security bureaucracy and relatives who may be trying to take their money.

Horace, 38, is a staff attorney with the Senior Citizens Law Project of Atlanta Legal Aid.

"We usually don't go to court," Horace said. "We try to persuade the offending party [to make things right]. . . . We offer advice, mostly."

Lately, his caseload has involved an increasing number of foreclosures, in which homeowners have been victims of predatory lenders.

"They were set up to fail from the beginning," he said.

He said, for example, that some mortgage contracts are written in such complex legalese that even the staff lawyers would have difficulty interpreting them.

"To make the argument that [clients] should have known better is insulting," Horace said.

Horace and the other five lawyers in the senior citizens unit may ask the lender to rescind the loan or rework it to avoid foreclosure, often using potential violations of the federal Truth in Lending Act as leverage. "That's our hammer," he said.

Horace's unit handles only civil cases with clients 60 or older. There are no limits on how much income or assets a client can have, and there are no fees for services.

Lawyers also can help people navigate the probate system, request property-tax discounts or apply for Social Security benefits.

Most of Horace's cases involve relationships between parties, he said.

A senior citizen who may be deemed legally incompetent may not have a living will or power of attorney. The staff lawyers help the family establish guardianship.

For other seniors, he will set up or make changes to those documents.

Horace also has had to unravel cases of financial exploitation, in which a child or grandchild may have acquired the title to a senior's house or taken the senior's identity and run up debt or sold the house.

"Often, [the senior citizens] won't go to the police, so we can't help them," he said. "There's clearly a wrong, but it's family."

• What got me interested in this: "I fancied myself a writer" while an undergraduate in college, Horace said.

But he was sued for libel over an op-ed piece in the student newspaper, in which he criticized comments made by a band during its performance. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union agreed to represent him — for free — because the issue involved freedom of speech.

"I was blown away that there were lawyers who did this," Horace said.

The case was dismissed, and it "sparked my interest in the law. It's a good way to make a difference."

• Best part of my job: "Helping my clients right a wrong," Horace said.

He pointed to a recent case in which a creditor was garnisheeing a client's Social Security funds, which are exempt from garnishment. Horace got the garnishment released.

"Our clients really need their money," he said.

• Most challenging part: "Clients with valid claims but who won't pursue them because of family dynamics," he said. "A lot of disputes involve family members at the core."

• What people don't know about my job: "A good part of my job does not involve legal action," Horace said. Most of it, he said, is "figuring out what happened" and referring people to the right resources.

He also spends a considerable amount of time talking to senior citizens at community centers about legal issues.

• What keeps me going: "My kids," Horace said.

In the relaxed atmosphere of the Atlanta Legal Aid offices, he said, he can bring his daughters, 5 and 7, to work.

"I like having them around me," he said, opening a desk drawer full of their toys.

• Preparation needed for this job: A practicing lawyer needs a law degree and must have passed the state bar exam.

Horace said that, to do his job, he also needs to know Atlanta. "I go visit my clients," he said. That also allows him to determine the relative value of their houses in case of foreclosures, he said.

"You need to be well-connected in the bar" to other lawyers and organizations, to whom he may need to refer cases, as well as be up to date on trends in the law and the latest court decisions that might affect clients.

Working with seniors also requires patience, he said. You have to let them talk, because that can be revealing about their situations, yet be able to rein them in to what's germane to the case.

Horace has a bachelor of arts degree in English from Vanderbilt University and a law degree from the University of Cincinnati.

In law school, he volunteered with the ACLU, where he became familiar with poverty law and indigent defense, and worked with a small firm that specialized in free-speech and improper-search cases.

He came to Atlanta Legal Aid when he finished law school and worked there for three years until he and his wife started their family.

He then went to work for the Arnall Golden Gregory firm in Atlanta "because I needed to make some money."

During his nine years there, he specialized in the health care industry.

He returned to Atlanta Legal Aid in April because he no longer wanted the pressures of working at a big law firm. At the senior citizens project, Horace has 25 to 30 active clients at a time.

- By Karl W. Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.