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The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, the oldest student-run legal services organization in the country, recently elected its 2008 Board of Directors. Lauren Leahy will serve as President and Anne Lee as Executive Director. Because the Bureau is student-run, its Board members take a front seat in policymaking, administrative tasks, client services and the general management of the firm.
Board members face an exciting and challenging year as the organization develops a long-term strategy to address Boston’s foreclosure crisis, enhances its partnerships with local battered women’s service providers, drafts proposed legislation; and engages in on-site assistance programs such as Attorney for a Day in Suffolk Housing Court.
“I think that the Bureau is poised for a fantastic, and fascinating, year” says Lauren Leahy, the new President of the organization. “Our students offer so much more than legal advocacy. They bring passion, excitement, and serious commitment to client services. I know that 2008 will be a bench-setting year for the organization.”
The Legal Aid Bureau offers free legal services to low-income clients in the Boston and Cambridge areas. Its membership includes over 40 Harvard Law School students, who commit their 2L and 3L years to the organization. Bureau members handle cases involving housing, employment, domestic, and public benefits law. Alumni of the Bureau include Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, and constitutional law scholars and professors Laurence Tribe and Erwin Chemerinsky.