Learning Lab

Leaving The Window Open: Calming the Tension between Case Numbers, Impact Work, Equitably Sensitive Representation, Effective Supervision and Other Impossible "Asks" of our Public Interest Law Firms

 OAA Title III funds for providing legal services to seniors come with unique programmatic requirements. Every grantee must conduct community education sessions, and structured outreach activities in addition to the direct representation they provide clients. When COVID struck, we struggled not only with how to represent seniors in isolation, but with how to satisfy our education and outreach obligations. We developed a weekly Zoom meeting protocol, in which we discussed legal developments and our service provision innovations. We updated our legal workers on COVID related employment issues, the housing moratorium, as well as newly relevant technical issues, such as virtual notarization of documents, and then presented on these issues at the weekly meetings. As COVID progressed and then waned, the meetings became a forum for encouraging inter-office cooperation and collaboration, promoting the diverse expertise of our members. We changed our meeting schedule to every two weeks, and then to the current schedule of once a month. The federal Administration for Community Living (ACL) encouraged grantees to center its senior outreach around equitable principles, and we began discussing those as a team, and then implementing them as we progressed. This commitment and conversation was further developed when we sponsored the first firmwide in-person training meeting after COVID, featuring an interactive race equity exercise throughout extensive substantive and practical trainings. Our alignment-by-necessity of these deliverables, along with development our top/down effort to streamline these commitments has created a legal practice team which delivers impact work, strong support for individual representation, as well as critical policy work. Our mission and firm values are reflected in our progress toward equity-centered work. Our firm principles have become action points, and this has resulted in a rich work product created from existing firm resources.

  • Identify and implement a broader, achievable vision of meaningful "impact work" for firm constituencies which buttresses their firm's mission and satisfies the demands of grantors and funders.
  • Present practical suggestions for implementing multi-level demands in their firm's work in an integrative way which develops cooperative work within the firm, positively shaping firm culture.
  • Devise a practical plan for the development of firm structure and work from the principles--such as connectedness, equity and accountability--which underlie the demands which can stymie our nonprofit work.
  • Present to their firm leadership and legal workers a holistic action plan that helps resolve the tension between impact work, individual representation, and important policy work without requiring additional resources.

Robert Bush, n/a

Statewide Director of Elder Law Unit

Georgia Legal Services Program, Inc.

Robert W. Bush: Robert has worked for the Georgia Legal Services Program, Inc. since 1992. He was the first attorney in Savannah to focus his practice on those suffering with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers in the early 90’s after securing funding for the project. He served hundreds of clients, and presented on his work to local, state, national, and international audiences. At the conclusion of this project, Robert shifted his focus to representing persons sixty years of age and over. He founded and chairs GLSP's Elder Action Team, and is now the statewide Director of GLSP’s Elder Law Unit, coordinating and guiding GLSP's work with senior clients. In addition to his casework, Robert continues to advocate for marginalized populations both in his practice and in his local community, placing a special focus on outreach and clinical work with special populations, such as LGBTQIA persons, the Hispanic community, and those lacking access to healthcare. He was a founding member of the Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council and has also served on the boards of the Chatham County Center Court; the Governor’s Advisory Board on Health Information Technology and Transparency; Georgians for a Healthy Future; the Advisory Board of Armstrong Atlantic University’s Masters of Public Health program; and the Legal Services Delivery Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section on Litigation. He has presented and facilitated three previously at MIE supervision trainings.

Shannon Mills, n/a

Director of Attorney Recruitment, Diversity and Retention

Georgia Legal Services Program, Inc.

Shannon L. Mills was born in raised in New Orleans, LA. He later moved to Carrollton, GA where he graduated from Carrollton High School. After, he attended Mercer University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a dual concentration in management and finance. He then attended Mercer University Law School and received his Juris Doctorate in 2017. He began working at Georgia Legal Services Program as an Equal Justice Works Fellow under the Georgia Housing Corps. Program. After his fellowship ended in 2020, he remained with Georgia Legal Services Program as staff attorney and then supervising attorney in 2021. He has been a leader on the GLSP Race Equity Team and has contributed to other teams and initiatives across the program. In March 2024, he transitioned into the role of Director of Attorney Recruitment, Diversity and Retention where he oversees attorney recruitment efforts and focuses on further advancing Georgia Legal Services Program’s commitment to diversity and retention.

Key:

Complete
Failed
Available
Locked
Evaluation
2 Questions