Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / How to Address Civil Legal Issues

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How to Address Civil Legal Issues · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

0:03
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Chatting with the Experts TV
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show, where I speak with women from Africa and the Caribbean and in the diaspora.
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These women are professionals, and they are also successful
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businesswomen with men.
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And the mission of this show is to inspire, educate
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and empower women globally.
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I love to add that I've had a few men grace the show.
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But for the most part, it's always for women.
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Today, we have a very interesting topic.
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It's called, Don't Wait on Addressing Legal Issues.
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And we need to do that.
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We'll be the MVLS Pro Bono Director, Makeisha Gibson.
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And she'll talk about the importance of addressing civil legal issues
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and what MVLS can do to health.
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So MVLS, I must explain to you, stands for the Maryland Volunteer Lawyer, I
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can't speak today, Lawyers Service.
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And Makeisha joined the MVLS in 2014 as an intake paralegal, and she
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has since risen through the ranks.
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The Senior Paralegal, Pro Bono Program Manager and is now the Pro Bono
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Director where she oversees the Pro Bono Intake Program while managing
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a team of six to eight paralegals.
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I cannot but say this part.
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Makeisha has been the 2024 recipient of the Maryland Legal Service Corporation
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William L. Marjorie Outstanding Advocate Award, which recognized
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her commitment to meeting the civil legal needs of low income Marylanders
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and expanding access to justice.
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There's a lot more I can say about her.
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All my guests have such
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amazing, I love that word bios.
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I can't say everything about that.
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So what I do is that I ask them to do that.
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So with that, I welcome Makeisha to Chatting with the Experts.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you so much, Paula, for that lovely intro and the warm welcome.
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So happy to be here today.
2:38
Absolutely.
2:38
I mean, you are the recipient of the Maryland Legal Service Corporation,
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it's a mouthful, William L. Marbury Outstanding Advocate Award.
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Tell me more about that.
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I mean,
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Yes.
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Read through and see how you rose to the way you are today.
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I love it.
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I was actually surprised to receive the award , but I'm really grateful.
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I've been doing this for some time, 10 years., Just in September
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was my 10 year anniversary.
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Time really does fly.
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I, yeah, as you kind of briefly touched on, I started here at MVLS in 2014.
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I had graduated from college.
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I got my degree in sociology and I thought I wanted to, like, do
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research while I was in school.
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And then at some point around after graduating, I felt like I kind of wanted
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to work directly with people and MVLS gave me an opportunity to do that.
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I didn't have any like legal background or paralegal
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certificate or anything coming in.
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I kind of just knew I wanted to work in the community and I wanted to do
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something to help, you know, people come out of their circumstances
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similar to how I have been able to.
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So yeah, I'm really proud to have been doing this work.
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I'm really proud to have received the award.
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Really grateful and I'm excited to be here to talk to you guys about it today.
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And I love success.
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You know, as you heard me say, this program is to celebrate women
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who have been successful, whether professionally or in business.
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Obviously, you're one of those.
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So thank you.
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I'm honored that you joined us today.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm honored to be here.
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Thank you.
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Okay, so, you know the MVLS, I love that.
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It's a service to help Marylanders who can't afford an attorney.
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Expand on that.
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Yeah.
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So MVLS or Maryland Volunteer Lawyer Service is pro bono
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legal service organization.
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To put it simply we match individual clients with an individual attorney to
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represent them in civil legal cases.
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As far as like income, most of our clients or pretty much all of the clients
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qualify for service have to fall below 50 percent of the median Maryland income.
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And yeah, we help with a wide array of civil legal issues.
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As many of you may heard there is no right to counsel in civil cases.
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There is in things like criminal cases.
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If you get arrested, you are entitled to receive a public defender.
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But in civil cases, there is no right to counsel.
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And so what we do is really try to help fill that, that gap, the justice gap and
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provide people with legal representation in cases that affect their livelihood,
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their ability to maintain a stable home for themselves, their families.
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Yeah, so that's a little bit of what we do generally, but I, you know, I'm
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happy to talk a little bit more as we get into it about the different
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types of cases and things like that.
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Yes, yes, yes.
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We'd love to hear that.
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I guess the science.
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I always believe in there's never a dumb question because this is the MVLS.
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M standing for Maryland.
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Someone from DC cannot come and cannot use the service, correct?
5:54
Someone from Virginia.
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That's actually a great question.
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That's not actually true.
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So it's really about the case being in Maryland, if you are a person
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that cannot afford representation and you have a legal issue in Maryland,
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you can apply for services with us.
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We have a lot of people who had a case, or at least they were living in Maryland
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when the issue occurred and now they have left the state, but they've received a
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notice in the mail that now they have to come back and deal with this legal issue.
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And so we've had, we've helped plenty of folks that live outside of the state.
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As long as your case is in the state of Maryland, you can apply for services.
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So, whatever it is to the originated while you were in Maryland, or
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happened when you were in Maryland.
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Even if you weren't in Maryland at the time, or you weren't a Maryland
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resident, there might be a case that comes up, you know, in Maryland.
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Sometimes we have family cases, for example, where one party moves to
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Maryland and then they file a family case in Maryland and a person from out
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of the state is now in the position where they have to come to Maryland
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in order to resolve that case.
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So sometimes they also folks who are outside of state also still
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need a Maryland attorney and we're a great place for that.
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That's good to know.
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That's good to know because you know when I of course invited you to the
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show and I saw Maryland I said, Hmm, I need to get some clarification, because,
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so thank you for clearing that up.
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So, you know, so you represent low income Marylanders who
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don't have access to legal help.
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How do you identify them?
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Do you like partner with a church?
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With nonprofits, because I know you are nonprofits, how do you identify them?
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I'd say all of the above.
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We have an outreach team that goes out into the community for specific
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initiatives, mainly, but also to just speak generally about our
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services and let folks know who we are and where they can find us.
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But we do have outreach folks that go out for particular projects.
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One that I can think of off the top of my head is a clinic that we run called
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My Home, My Deed, My Legacy where we partner with local churches throughout
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Baltimore City, which is where our office is based, and we come to those churches
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and we give short presentations about estate planning and getting the deed
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to your home untangled, so to speak.
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Tangled titles is a thing that we talk about a lot where folks are living in
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what is probably a multi generational household that was owned by a family
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member who has since passed away.
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But that family member's name is still on the deed to the house and the mortgage.
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And so those folks who are living in the house today are really unable
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to, you know, get things that they need to get done for the home done.
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They're unable to apply and qualify for aid, unable to take over the mortgage and
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deal directly with the mortgage lender.
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So there's a lot of work that we do with just trying to educate folks
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about how those issues can snowball and become really big problems that are
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hard to get out of, especially for your family members later down the line.
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And we just try to get ahead of that and make sure that folks are able to
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stay in their homes and pass those homes down to their children without
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folks having to spend a lot of money or, you know, kind of fall into the system
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and end up, you know, without a house.
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Because unfortunately that does end up happening to so many people.
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Things like water bills or unpaid tax, property taxes or citations, environmental
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citations around the home can really have a major impact on black wealth.
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Can I say that?
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Yes.
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I have heard so many.
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Well, not so many, but I've heard of some stories like that, which
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is, you know, heartbreaking.
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Because as a whole, I mean, a lot of people like me and you, who look
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like me and you in particular live in household multi generational
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and they don't even think about it.
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If this was grandpa's or grandma's house, that's our house.
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You know what I mean?
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You've always lived.
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And I think many people assume that it just automatically passes down.
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I think that people you have a right to the home, but you still have to do the
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process of moving the home into your name so that you're able to move forward
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and do things that are needed for the property, get tax credits and other
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benefits that come with home ownership.
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So, yeah.
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So, do you guys like, I mean, I know you provide, typically you provide legal
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services, but what about educating them?
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You know, educating the population that this, okay, like we said, culturally, it's
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a grandparents house or great grandparents house as far as we're concerned.
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We have the grandchildren or great grandchildren, it's ours.
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Well, how do you let them know this?
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Yeah, so that's part of what we do.
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When we do go out into the community we try to participate in
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a lot of community based events.
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We'll try to table at different festivals or different events
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that the city has going on.
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And we usually try to do a small presentation when we
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come to someone else's space.
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And as a part of us, you know, offering services to them, we also give them a
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little bit of education or background on, like, the particular legal issue
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that we might be there to discuss.
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And yeah, so that allows folks to, even if they don't have an issue that
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they can get help with in that day, a lot of times folks take that back
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home to their friends and family.
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And let them know, like, hey, I heard that, you know, I know that
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you're dealing with this issue.
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I went out to an event the other day and I learned about this organization
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that can help with this type of issue.
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You should give them a call.
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And so that's a really lovely thing is like, even when we can't
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necessarily provide a direct service to someone we're getting the word
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out and folks are learning that these resources are available because
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for a long time, and even myself, before I started here, I didn't know
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that a program like this existed.
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And if I had gotten a notice in the mail, I probably would have just tried to go at
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it by myself and likely would have lost because that's unfortunately just how it
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pans out for most unrepresented litigants.
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Yes, yes, yes.
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You're so right.
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And I mean, there's a fear that goes with that.
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And you know what, when you don't know what you don't know, you're really lost.
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I should also say, though on top of us going out into the community and doing
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presentations we also create, like, lots of little fact sheets and things that
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we post on our website for folks who are trying to represent themselves or who
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don't qualify for help or, you know, just, just want to get some information before
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they try to, you know, hire anyone or, you know, or go about it by themselves.
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On our website at mvlslaw.org.
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You can go on there and find a list of fact sheets.
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They are separated out by different types of legal issues.
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So if you have questions about getting your criminal record expunged, if you
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have questions about the bankruptcy process about what happens in, you
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know, in court in a family law case, you can find a lot of fact sheets on
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our website that kind of break down those things step by step for you.
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So, that's another good place to check if you are in need of some legal information.
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So, you do have fact sheets on your website that people can access.
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Yes.
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Yes or no?
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Yes.
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I do want to say that.
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Unfortunately, we can't provide direct legal advice through our office.
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So we are more of a placement program.
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So you apply for services with us and after we review
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and approve your application.
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We will match you with an attorney who is not actually an employee of our office.
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These are attorneys throughout the state of Maryland who've agreed to
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take these cases pro bono, which means they are not charging our
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clients any fees for their work and that's kind of how our model works.
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So unfortunately, while you can't call in and get like a media advice
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the same day you can call in and tell us about your legal issue, we'll try
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to ask all of the important questions that the attorney might need to
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know before they agree to help you.
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We'll gather the documents that might be needed for your case, depending
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on what it is, and then we'll kind of create a little summary of your case
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and send it out to attorneys In the area where your case is and say, Hey,
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is anyone available to help this client?
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And that's pretty much how it happens.
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And then we match you with the attorney, you guys work directly
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together and there you go.
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Wow.
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You know, that's so helpful.
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That's really so helpful because you're taking a big load off the chest of, you
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know people who are already in positions where they need help for other things.
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And so this is an additional thing to do.
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Absolutely.
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And I would say, like, people are dealing with so much every day.
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And it's when you have a million other things going on.
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And sometimes some of those things are more pressing than the notice
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you got in the mail that you have to go to court in a couple of months.
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But it is really important.
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I stress to folks to not wait to address that notice.
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Because you really don't have as much time as you think between the time that
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you get the notice and the time that you have to appear in court or the time
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that you have to address the issue.
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If you're going to need help, it's going to take time for you to apply
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and for folks to look for someone to help you to gather all of the
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information that they'll need.
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So I really encourage folks to try to get ahead of it as soon as possible.
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It can be very, very scary, especially if you've never had to
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deal with anything legal on your own, any legal issues on your own.
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But the other thing that happens when people don't deal with things
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right up front is that they snowball and turn into other legal issues.
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You know, a simple you know, a case that a credit card company filed for a debt.
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If that debt is entered by the judge, they can then later attach that to
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your, your bank accounts and garnish your wages, garnish your bank accounts.
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And that, that can cause a huge problem for folks, especially folks
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who are renting or having a mortgage.
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Suddenly you have no way to pay your rent.
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Suddenly you are at risk of losing your children because you don't have a stable
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home environment for them to live in.
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So these are just some examples of how something really minute or small that
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didn't seem like a big deal at the moment or didn't seem like a priority
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can turn into like a nightmare and really throw your whole life off track.
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So really encourage folks to get ahead of it as soon as possible, anytime they can.
16:18
Yes, yes, yes.
16:19
I mean, I was thinking about that.
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I mean, your mail comes, you don't look at it, you do look at it, you don't
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know what to do, you put it to one side, say I'm going to get to it, and
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then the next thing, as you say, it has snowballed into the fact you can't pay
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your mortgage, you can't pay your rent.
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And let's face the fact if you can't do either.
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It's very easy to be pushed out onto the street.
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And then,
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yeah,
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you know, that's another....
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That happens everyday.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I, yeah, I can't say enough that I just encourage folks to try to reach out and
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figure out, like, how to deal with it in the then and now, I can't say... I'll say
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myself I've been guilty of opening that piece of mail and putting it to the side.
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And the next thing I know, my traffic ticket has doubled.
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So,
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yes.
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These are little reminders, you know of how, you know, ignoring something could
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turn it into a doubly worse problem.
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Yeah.
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Yes, yes.
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And especially when it hits your pocket.
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I mean, whoa.
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Yeah.
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So talking about facts, I noticed that I read this somewhere.
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I think you need to tell me about this that 80 percent of people
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who go to court unrepresented have outcomes that were worse than they
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expected it to be, especially...
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Yeah, I think that might be a stat that we have on our website just that, you
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know, out of all of the folks who can't afford representation only about 20
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percent end up finding representation.
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So those other 80 percent folks do end up going to court
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unrepresented and they do their best.
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And oftentimes they don't get as good of an outcome as they could have if
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they were represented by an attorney.
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That's just what we see for example I know particularly in collections
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cases, we have seen that folks are six and a half times more likely to
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prevail when they have representation there with them in the courtroom.
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So it really goes without saying having someone there, an expert there who
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knows what they're doing and knows, you know, what to argue how to, you know,
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present a defense on your behalf, who knows what to file with the courts.
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It really goes a long way.
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And it helps a lot of folks avoid a lot of hard consequences.
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Yeah.
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So I really encourage everyone to reach out if you have a really illegal issue.
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There are folks that are available to help and they want to help
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and they want to do this work.
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So.
18:58
Awesome, Makeisha.
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You have any success stories to tell us about?
19:02
We love stories.
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Without compromising, you know, anyone's privacy, like, you know, of a family
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law case, or if you don't, that's fine.
19:13
Yeah we have a lot of stories.
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I am not as close to the cases as I was when I was a paralegal.
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I do a lot of more of the data collection, but we have had plenty of great stories.
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I know, many of the stories that folks in our office, because we do have a few
19:32
staff attorneys and some of the stories that they like to tell about is stories
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where we have been working for a long time to try to save someone's home from
19:42
either tax sale or foreclosure, and we're often able to go in and help to,
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as I said earlier, untangle the title.
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So we help with the probate process, which is after a person
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in the family has passed away.
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Making sure that everything that was in their name we open their estate
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and assure that their belongings are passed down to their heirs.
20:06
And that includes, like, the deed to a property.
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It can be and then we'll create the deed, the new deed in a way so that
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the future generations do not have to go through this process again.
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There is a way that a deed can be written to automatically pass down.
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And so we inform folks that that as well.
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I would say that those are some of the greatest success stories that
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we really see is when we're able to avoid folks being put out of a home
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that they've oftentimes been raised in or have raised their own families.
20:35
And we have a lot of older adults who we've helped with
20:38
that situation, particularly.
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And so that makes me honestly feel great.
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Those are some of my favorite success stories when especially help
20:46
keeping an older adult in their home.
20:49
Yes.
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Especially, you know, now that we have so many baby boomers
20:55
who are, you know, aging.
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You know, getting to the point where, you know, they need help.
21:00
And...
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Absolutely.
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And a lot of people are living on fixed incomes.
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There's just no way that they would be able to afford to pay an attorney.
21:08
And so I'm really grateful for the volunteers that we have that,
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you know, want to do this work and you know, reach out to us and let
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us know when they're available.
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And they're really, really intentional about trying to help folks and
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just improve the community overall.
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They want to improve others lives so that we can live in a better, you
21:29
know, better space, better place.
21:33
So, you know, that makes me think about, you know, gentrification.
21:37
I've seen quite a lot of places being gentrified.
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And I know that's probably some of the work that the MVLS does.
21:45
How do you address these structures that we know are,
21:50
let me not sugarcoat it.
21:52
These systems that we know have racist background, have racist undertone,
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because a lot of gentrification happens in neighborhoods that are, you know, you have
22:03
lower income people living there and...
22:06
Right.
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Someone comes in, you know what I mean?
22:09
Yeah, and they decide like, this is really cheap here.
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I want to, you know, come and just build on it.
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And eventually they end up moving the folks that live there out.
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They build in the area so that they rise up the price of everything around them.
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It's no longer a place where small businesses can thrive.
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It's no longer a place where folks can afford the rent.
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Home values are have gone down for folks that have lived there for a long time.
22:37
And so yeah, that's something we definitely see him are aware of.
22:41
And it's a problem that we are talking about as we're talking about our
22:45
state planning work and our state administration work and our tangled
22:49
title work specifically because we want folks to know, like, there is a history
22:53
and there is a reason why you see so many abandoned homes in Baltimore.
22:58
These things were done through the law.
23:00
And so we need to use the law to remedy a lot of these these situations
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and get, the folks to be able to stay in their homes and maintain
23:10
the wealth that their families, all of their lives to build often.
23:13
Those homes should stay with their kids and their grandkids.
23:16
Oftentimes over things like a water bill or late property taxes, or
23:21
some of the examples I gave earlier, folks are losing things that their
23:24
families have worked their whole lives.
23:26
And yeah, that's, that's the story of how a lot of cities end up being gentrified.
23:32
And we're trying to go out and educate folks about what's going on,
23:36
including the attorneys in the state.
23:38
To let them know that there's a huge problem and there's a great need.
23:41
And we've been really successful in getting new folks in the door
23:45
and to help out with these cases.
23:46
And we're really excited to continue this work.
23:48
We have seen some success, particularly in Baltimore.
23:51
So we're going to keep going.
23:56
That fills me with some hope and some joy because when I drive through
23:59
Baltimore and I see the abandoned homes, I know there's always a family.
24:03
There's a story behind that.
24:04
They weren't just abandoned.
24:05
They weren't just there and someone walked away.
24:08
Most times...
24:08
Absolutely.
24:10
Yeah.
24:10
And then another thing that I that didn't immediately come to mind is
24:13
that we also help on the back end.
24:15
So on the front end, we're in the courtroom with, you know, we have an
24:18
attorney there representing the individual clients, but then we're also working
24:22
behind the scenes to support legislation that addresses some of these issues.
24:27
For example, I know a few years back we were huge proponents of changes to
24:34
like the tax sale process or bills that basically... What ended up happening
24:39
is they made it so that folks who had a late water bill were no longer going
24:42
to be placed on the tax sale list.
24:44
And that made a huge difference in the number of folks who were
24:48
able to avoid losing their homes.
24:50
So yeah, there's legislative efforts that are going on in the background
24:54
that we are very tuned into.
24:55
We kind of stay abreast of what's going on and we come in and support and
24:59
provide testimony on different bills.
25:01
Particularly when it's an area that we've been working in, we've kind of gotten
25:05
some anecdotal evidence from our clients.
25:07
We can go in and kind of tell their stories to, you know, support
25:10
those bills and get laws passed.
25:14
It's a great thing.
25:16
Grateful.
25:18
I mean, this is something that needs more people to be aware of because, you know,
25:22
sometimes that may be happening to folks who are in a particular city and those
25:28
who can help probably abroad or, you know, other parts of the country, and they don't
25:32
even know that their folks can get that.
25:34
So MVLS is really doing something that is outstanding.
25:40
So if someone would like to, you know, know more about you,
25:44
how can people find you online?
25:46
Not you in particular, but find out more about...
25:48
yeah, of course.
25:50
So, We have a website it's www.mvlslaw.org.
25:58
There you will find a list of all of the types of cases that we can handle.
26:03
You'll find our income requirements.
26:06
You will see a little bit about our mission and what we do, different
26:11
types of new stories about things that we've been doing out in the community.
26:15
There is an events calendar for some upcoming events that we
26:19
might be having in your area.
26:20
So I encourage folks to check that out.
26:22
And then you can also give us a call.
26:24
If you are in need of services, you can contact us.
26:28
Our telephone intake line is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a. m. to 12 p.
26:32
m. And that number is (410) 547-6537 for those who are listening and not watching.
26:41
Yes.
26:41
And are you on any of the social media platform?
26:44
Did you mention that?
26:46
I do not handle our social media, but I know that we are on Facebook and LinkedIn.
26:52
I can't say for sure if we have an Instagram page.
26:54
I'll have to check in with our communications manager.
26:57
But I know that for a fact that we have Facebook and we're also on LinkedIn.
27:02
I feel like we were on Twitter, or I think it's called X now
27:05
at one point, but I'm not sure.
27:10
Oh, wow Makeisha this has been awesome.
27:14
And, you know, I always encourage those who have joined us to stay back behind
27:18
and ask any questions that they may have because I mean I can't cover everything
27:23
within the time frame believe it or not we've been talking for over two for over
27:26
20 minutes at least and I'd like to say to those who are listening who haven't joined
27:32
us online that if you want to be a guest on my show please reach out to me on my
27:38
website which is chattingwiththeexperts.
27:40
com.
27:42
I am also on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh.
27:46
I am on Instagram.
27:49
My handle there is at chat_experts_podcast and you can also find me on Facebook.
27:59
Just search for or look for Paula Okonneh there and ask if
28:03
you can be a guest on the show.
28:06
Makeisha, this has been very informative.
28:08
Thank you.
28:09
And please stay back so that everybody who has joined us will be able to ask
28:14
you all the questions that I didn't ask.
28:18
Absolutely.
28:19
Thank you so much for having me today.
28:21
I'm happy to stick around and answer any questions that folks
28:24
might have and ready to go.
28:27
Thank you.