Like other legal services for poor people, Atlanta Legal Aid represents clients seeking public assistance, protection from violent spouses and eviction threats from capricious landlords.
Over the past three decades, the program has made a concerted effort to also stick up for the rights of homeowners holding egregious mortgage loans, for people with HIV and cancer, for children with asthma living in unhealthy conditions, for Spanish-speaking immigrants and senior citizens in nursing and personal care homes. Atlanta Legal Aid’s reach has extended far beyond its five-county area. Its lawyers won a landmark case that gives people with disabilities nationwide the right to live in community settings and not confined to instiuitions.
“One thing that marks our program is that we have expanded our work to protect people who are particularly vulnerable,” said Steve Gottlieb, the program’s executive director.
Having served in that role for 33 years, Gottlieb is a large part of why that expansion has taken place. The American Bar Association has honored him with its 2013 Charles H. Dorsey Jr. Award, which recognizes exceptional work by a legal aid lawyer. True to his nature, Gottlieb deflects the credit, arguing that he is just a front man for the exceptional and passionate lawyers he works with.
Q: How did you come to Atlanta Legal Aid?
A: I was at the University of Pennsylvania law school in 1968 and saw a letter from the then director talking about the exciting cases they were doing and looking for summer students. It was intriguing — I had never been south of Philadelphia.
Q: What were the exciting cases?
A: Statutes in Georgia and Alabama said women with public assistance benefits couldn’t have men in the house. The Alabama case went to the U.S. Supreme Court which said the state couldn’t add to the rules set by the federal government. That was the first case to establish some of the rights of poor people under federal law.
Q: Why did you stay at Legal Aid?
A: I had an opportunity to deal with real people in a way I never had when I was a law student. The people I work with here are why I stayed so long. Some have a social agenda. Some want to help people. All are high quality and committed.
Q: Why should people who aren’t poor care about Atlanta Legal Aid?
A: A lot of the work we do transcends poor people. People with disabilities who want to live in the community could be rich or poor. Our Home Defense Project, which protects people against predatory mortgage lending, has a way of protecting people who are middle class. We will represent a middle class person with no assets who is being subjected to domestic violence. We have no income restrictions on our work with seniors.
Q: Has the recession changed your client mix?
A: We have a lot of clients who are newly poor, particularly in places like Cobb and Gwinnett. They are much more worried and scared when they come to us. They also are much more demanding because they are not used to dealing with an organization that cannot handle everything they want.
Q: How has the recession affected your budget?
A: Times are very tough. In the past two years, we have lost $1.5 million from an $9.5 million budget. At the same time, the population we serve has increased 90 percent in the last decade.
Q: You have described yourself as a ringmaster. How so?
A: I get a lot of credit for what other people do. We have had some remarkable cases over the last 30 years and I haven’t been the lawyer on any of them.
Q: What have you accomplished during that time?
A: I hope it is that I have been able to keep good people around. People can leave as long as they tell me this is the best job they have ever had.
The Sunday Conversation is edited for length and clarity. Writer Ann Hardie can be reached by email at ann.hardie@ymail.com.
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