How to Address Civil Legal Issues

Paula: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Chatting with the Experts TV show, where I speak with women from Africa and the Caribbean and in the diaspora. These women are professionals, and they are also successful businesswomen with men. And the mission of this show is to inspire, educate and empower women globally. I love to add that I’ve had a few men grace the show. But for the most part, it’s always for women. Today, we have a very interesting topic. It’s called, Don’t Wait on Addressing Legal Issues. And we need to do that. We’ll be the MVLS Pro Bono Director, Makeisha Gibson. And she’ll talk about the importance of addressing civil [00:01:00] legal issues and what MVLS can do to health.
So MVLS, I must explain to you, stands for the Maryland Volunteer Lawyer, I can’t speak today, Lawyers Service. And Makeisha joined the MVLS in 2014 as an intake paralegal, and she has since risen through the ranks. The Senior Paralegal, Pro Bono Program Manager and is now the Pro Bono Director where she oversees the Pro Bono Intake Program while managing a team of six to eight paralegals. I cannot but say this part. Makeisha has been the 2024 recipient of the Maryland Legal Service Corporation William L. Marjorie Outstanding Advocate Award, which recognized her commitment to meeting the civil legal needs of low [00:02:00] income Marylanders and expanding access to justice. There’s a lot more I can say about her. All my guests have such amazing, I love that word bios. I can’t say everything about that. So what I do is that I ask them to do that. So with that, I welcome Makeisha to Chatting with the Experts. Welcome to the show.
Makeisha: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Paula, for that lovely intro and the warm welcome. So happy to be here today.
Paula: Absolutely. I mean, you are the recipient of the Maryland Legal Service Corporation, it’s a mouthful, William L. Marbury Outstanding Advocate Award. Tell me more about that. I mean,
Makeisha: Yes.
Paula: Read through and see how you rose to the way you are today. I love it.
Makeisha: I was actually surprised to receive [00:03:00] the award , but I’m really grateful. I’ve been doing this for some time, 10 years., Just in September was my 10 year anniversary. Time really does fly. I, yeah, as you kind of briefly touched on, I started here at MVLS in 2014. I had graduated from college. I got my degree in sociology and I thought I wanted to, like, do research while I was in school. And then at some point around after graduating, I felt like I kind of wanted to work directly with people and MVLS gave me an opportunity to do that. I didn’t have any like legal background or paralegal certificate or anything coming in. I kind of just knew I wanted to work in the community and I wanted to do something to help, you know, people come out of their circumstances similar to how I have been able to. So yeah, I’m really proud to have been doing this work. I’m really proud to have received the award. Really grateful and I’m excited to be here to talk to you guys about it today.[00:04:00]
Paula: And I love success. You know, as you heard me say, this program is to celebrate women who have been successful, whether professionally or in business. Obviously, you’re one of those. So thank you. I’m honored that you joined us today. Thank you so much.
Makeisha: I’m honored to be here. Thank you.
Paula: Okay, so, you know the MVLS, I love that. It’s a service to help Marylanders who can’t afford an attorney. Expand on that.
Makeisha: Yeah. So MVLS or Maryland Volunteer Lawyer Service is pro bono legal service organization. To put it simply we match individual clients with an individual attorney to represent them in civil legal cases. As far as like income, most of our clients or pretty much all of the clients qualify for service have to fall below 50 percent of the median Maryland income. And yeah, we help with a wide array of civil legal issues. As many of you may heard there [00:05:00] is no right to counsel in civil cases.
There is in things like criminal cases. If you get arrested, you are entitled to receive a public defender. But in civil cases, there is no right to counsel. And so what we do is really try to help fill that, that gap, the justice gap and provide people with legal representation in cases that affect their livelihood, their ability to maintain a stable home for themselves, their families. Yeah, so that’s a little bit of what we do generally, but I, you know, I’m happy to talk a little bit more as we get into it about the different types of cases and things like that.
Paula: Yes, yes, yes. We’d love to hear that. I guess the science. I always believe in there’s never a dumb question because this is the MVLS. M standing for Maryland. Someone from DC cannot come and cannot use the service, correct? Someone from Virginia.
Makeisha: That’s actually a great question. That’s not actually true. So it’s really about the [00:06:00] case being in Maryland, if you are a person that cannot afford representation and you have a legal issue in Maryland, you can apply for services with us. We have a lot of people who had a case, or at least they were living in Maryland when the issue occurred and now they have left the state, but they’ve received a notice in the mail that now they have to come back and deal with this legal issue. And so we’ve had, we’ve helped plenty of folks that live outside of the state. As long as your case is in the state of Maryland, you can apply for services.
Paula: So, whatever it is to the originated while you were in Maryland, or happened when you were in Maryland.
Makeisha: Even if you weren’t in Maryland at the time, or you weren’t a Maryland resident, there might be a case that comes up, you know, in Maryland. Sometimes we have family cases, for example, where one party moves to Maryland and then they file a family case in Maryland and a person from out of the state is now in the position where they have to come to Maryland in order to resolve that case. So sometimes they [00:07:00] also folks who are outside of state also still need a Maryland attorney and we’re a great place for that.
Paula: That’s good to know. That’s good to know because you know when I of course invited you to the show and I saw Maryland I said, Hmm, I need to get some clarification, because, so thank you for clearing that up. So, you know, so you represent low income Marylanders who don’t have access to legal help. How do you identify them? Do you like partner with a church? With nonprofits, because I know you are nonprofits, how do you identify them?
Makeisha: I’d say all of the above. We have an outreach team that goes out into the community for specific initiatives, mainly, but also to just speak generally about our services and let folks know who we are and where they can find us. But we do have outreach folks that go out for particular projects. One that I can think of off the top of my head is a clinic that we run called My Home, [00:08:00] My Deed, My Legacy where we partner with local churches throughout Baltimore City, which is where our office is based, and we come to those churches and we give short presentations about estate planning and getting the deed to your home untangled, so to speak. Tangled titles is a thing that we talk about a lot where folks are living in what is probably a multi generational household that was owned by a family member who has since passed away. But that family member’s name is still on the deed to the house and the mortgage. And so those folks who are living in the house today are really unable to, you know, get things that they need to get done for the home done. They’re unable to apply and qualify for aid, unable to take over the mortgage and deal directly with the mortgage lender.
So there’s a lot of work that we do with just trying to educate folks about how those issues can snowball and become really big problems that are hard to get out of, especially for your family members later down the line. And we just try to get ahead of that and make sure that [00:09:00] folks are able to stay in their homes and pass those homes down to their children without folks having to spend a lot of money or, you know, kind of fall into the system and end up, you know, without a house. Because unfortunately that does end up happening to so many people. Things like water bills or unpaid tax, property taxes or citations, environmental citations around the home can really have a major impact on black wealth. Can I say that?
Paula: Yes. I have heard so many. Well, not so many, but I’ve heard of some stories like that, which is, you know, heartbreaking. Because as a whole, I mean, a lot of people like me and you, who look like me and you in particular live in household multi generational and they don’t even think about it. If this was grandpa’s or grandma’s house, that’s our house. You know what I mean? You’ve always lived.
Makeisha: And I think many people assume that it just automatically passes down. I think that people you have a right [00:10:00] to the home, but you still have to do the process of moving the home into your name so that you’re able to move forward and do things that are needed for the property, get tax credits and other benefits that come with home ownership. So, yeah.
Paula: So, do you guys like, I mean, I know you provide, typically you provide legal services, but what about educating them? You know, educating the population that this, okay, like we said, culturally, it’s a grandparents house or great grandparents house as far as we’re concerned. We have the grandchildren or great grandchildren, it’s ours. Well, how do you let them know this?
Makeisha: Yeah, so that’s part of what we do. When we do go out into the community we try to participate in a lot of community based events. We’ll try to table at different festivals or different events that the city has going on. And we usually try to do a small presentation when we come to someone else’s space. And [00:11:00] as a part of us, you know, offering services to them, we also give them a little bit of education or background on, like, the particular legal issue that we might be there to discuss. And yeah, so that allows folks to, even if they don’t have an issue that they can get help with in that day, a lot of times folks take that back home to their friends and family. And let them know, like, hey, I heard that, you know, I know that you’re dealing with this issue. I went out to an event the other day and I learned about this organization that can help with this type of issue. You should give them a call. And so that’s a really lovely thing is like, even when we can’t necessarily provide a direct service to someone we’re getting the word out and folks are learning that these resources are available because for a long time, and even myself, before I started here, I didn’t know that a program like this existed. And if I had gotten a notice in the mail, I probably would have just tried to go at it by myself and likely would have lost because that’s unfortunately just how it [00:12:00] pans out for most unrepresented litigants.
Paula: Yes, yes, yes. You’re so right. And I mean, there’s a fear that goes with that. And you know what, when you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re really lost.
Makeisha: I should also say, though on top of us going out into the community and doing presentations we also create, like, lots of little fact sheets and things that we post on our website for folks who are trying to represent themselves or who don’t qualify for help or, you know, just, just want to get some information before they try to, you know, hire anyone or, you know, or go about it by themselves. On our website at mvlslaw.org. You can go on there and find a list of fact sheets. They are separated out by different types of legal issues. So if you have questions about getting your criminal record expunged, if you have questions about the bankruptcy process about what happens in, you know, in court in a family law case, you can find a lot of fact sheets on our website that kind of break down those things step by [00:13:00] step for you. So, that’s another good place to check if you are in need of some legal information.
Paula: So, you do have fact sheets on your website that people can access.
Makeisha: Yes.
Paula: Yes or no? Yes.
Makeisha: I do want to say that. Unfortunately, we can’t provide direct legal advice through our office. So we are more of a placement program. So you apply for services with us and after we review and approve your application. We will match you with an attorney who is not actually an employee of our office. These are attorneys throughout the state of Maryland who’ve agreed to take these cases pro bono, which means they are not charging our clients any fees for their work and that’s kind of how our model works. So unfortunately, while you can’t call in and get like a media advice the same day you can call in and tell us about your legal issue, we’ll try to ask all of the important questions that the attorney might need to know before they agree to help you. We’ll gather the documents that might be needed for your case, depending on what it is, [00:14:00] and then we’ll kind of create a little summary of your case and send it out to attorneys In the area where your case is and say, Hey, is anyone available to help this client? And that’s pretty much how it happens. And then we match you with the attorney, you guys work directly together and there you go.
Paula: Wow. You know, that’s so helpful. That’s really so helpful because you’re taking a big load off the chest of, you know people who are already in positions where they need help for other things. And so this is an additional thing to do.
Makeisha: Absolutely. And I would say, like, people are dealing with so much every day. And it’s when you have a million other things going on. And sometimes some of those things are more pressing than the notice you got in the mail that you have to go to court in a couple of months. But it is really important. I stress to folks to not wait to address that notice. Because you really don’t have as much time as you think between the time that you get the notice and the time that you have to appear [00:15:00] in court or the time that you have to address the issue. If you’re going to need help, it’s going to take time for you to apply and for folks to look for someone to help you to gather all of the information that they’ll need.
So I really encourage folks to try to get ahead of it as soon as possible. It can be very, very scary, especially if you’ve never had to deal with anything legal on your own, any legal issues on your own. But the other thing that happens when people don’t deal with things right up front is that they snowball and turn into other legal issues. You know, a simple you know, a case that a credit card company filed for a debt. If that debt is entered by the judge, they can then later attach that to your, your bank accounts and garnish your wages, garnish your bank accounts. And that, that can cause a huge problem for folks, especially folks who are renting or having a mortgage.
Suddenly you have no way to pay your rent. Suddenly you are at risk of losing your children because you don’t have a stable home environment for them [00:16:00] to live in. So these are just some examples of how something really minute or small that didn’t seem like a big deal at the moment or didn’t seem like a priority can turn into like a nightmare and really throw your whole life off track. So really encourage folks to get ahead of it as soon as possible, anytime they can.
Paula: Yes, yes, yes. I mean, I was thinking about that. I mean, your mail comes, you don’t look at it, you do look at it, you don’t know what to do, you put it to one side, say I’m going to get to it, and then the next thing, as you say, it has snowballed into the fact you can’t pay your mortgage, you can’t pay your rent. And let’s face the fact if you can’t do either. It’s very easy to be pushed out onto the street. And then,
Makeisha: yeah,
Paula: you know, that’s another….
Makeisha: That happens everyday. Yeah, absolutely. I, yeah, I can’t say enough that I just encourage folks to try to reach out and figure out, like, how to deal with it in the then and now, I can’t say… I’ll say myself I’ve been guilty of [00:17:00] opening that piece of mail and putting it to the side. And the next thing I know, my traffic ticket has doubled. So,
Paula: yes.
Makeisha: These are little reminders, you know of how, you know, ignoring something could turn it into a doubly worse problem.
Paula: Yeah. Yes, yes. And especially when it hits your pocket. I mean, whoa.
Makeisha: Yeah.
Paula: So talking about facts, I noticed that I read this somewhere. I think you need to tell me about this that 80 percent of people who go to court unrepresented have outcomes that were worse than they expected it to be, especially…
Makeisha: Yeah, I think that might be a stat that we have on our website just that, you know, out of all of the folks who can’t afford representation only about 20 percent end up finding representation. So those other 80 percent folks do end up [00:18:00] going to court unrepresented and they do their best. And oftentimes they don’t get as good of an outcome as they could have if they were represented by an attorney. That’s just what we see for example I know particularly in collections cases, we have seen that folks are six and a half times more likely to prevail when they have representation there with them in the courtroom. So it really goes without saying having someone there, an expert there who knows what they’re doing and knows, you know, what to argue how to, you know, present a defense on your behalf, who knows what to file with the courts. It really goes a long way. And it helps a lot of folks avoid a lot of hard consequences. Yeah. So I really encourage everyone to reach out if you have a really illegal issue. There are folks that are available to help and they want to help and they want to do this work. So.
Paula: Awesome, Makeisha. [00:19:00] You have any success stories to tell us about? We love stories. Without compromising, you know, anyone’s privacy, like, you know, of a family law case, or if you don’t, that’s fine.
Makeisha: Yeah we have a lot of stories. I am not as close to the cases as I was when I was a paralegal. I do a lot of more of the data collection, but we have had plenty of great stories. I know, many of the stories that folks in our office, because we do have a few staff attorneys and some of the stories that they like to tell about is stories where we have been working for a long time to try to save someone’s home from either tax sale or foreclosure, and we’re often able to go in and help to, as I said earlier, untangle the title.
So we help with the probate process, which is after a person in the family has passed away. Making sure that everything that was in their [00:20:00] name we open their estate and assure that their belongings are passed down to their heirs. And that includes, like, the deed to a property. It can be and then we’ll create the deed, the new deed in a way so that the future generations do not have to go through this process again. There is a way that a deed can be written to automatically pass down. And so we inform folks that that as well. I would say that those are some of the greatest success stories that we really see is when we’re able to avoid folks being put out of a home that they’ve oftentimes been raised in or have raised their own families. And we have a lot of older adults who we’ve helped with that situation, particularly. And so that makes me honestly feel great. Those are some of my favorite success stories when especially help keeping an older adult in their home.
Paula: Yes. Especially, you know, now that we have so many baby boomers who are, you know, aging. You know, getting to the point where, you know, they need [00:21:00] help. And…
Makeisha: Absolutely. And a lot of people are living on fixed incomes. There’s just no way that they would be able to afford to pay an attorney. And so I’m really grateful for the volunteers that we have that, you know, want to do this work and you know, reach out to us and let us know when they’re available. And they’re really, really intentional about trying to help folks and just improve the community overall. They want to improve others lives so that we can live in a better, you know, better space, better place.
Paula: So, you know, that makes me think about, you know, gentrification. I’ve seen quite a lot of places being gentrified. And I know that’s probably some of the work that the MVLS does. How do you address these structures that we know are, let me not sugarcoat it. These systems that we know have racist background, have racist undertone, because a lot of [00:22:00] gentrification happens in neighborhoods that are, you know, you have lower income people living there and…
Makeisha: Right.
Paula: Someone comes in, you know what I mean?
Makeisha: Yeah, and they decide like, this is really cheap here. I want to, you know, come and just build on it. And eventually they end up moving the folks that live there out. They build in the area so that they rise up the price of everything around them. It’s no longer a place where small businesses can thrive. It’s no longer a place where folks can afford the rent. Home values are have gone down for folks that have lived there for a long time. And so yeah, that’s something we definitely see him are aware of. And it’s a problem that we are talking about as we’re talking about our state planning work and our state administration work and our tangled title work specifically because we want folks to know, like, there is a history and there is a reason why you see so many abandoned homes in Baltimore.
These things were done through the [00:23:00] law. And so we need to use the law to remedy a lot of these these situations and get, the folks to be able to stay in their homes and maintain the wealth that their families, all of their lives to build often. Those homes should stay with their kids and their grandkids. Oftentimes over things like a water bill or late property taxes, or some of the examples I gave earlier, folks are losing things that their families have worked their whole lives.
And yeah, that’s, that’s the story of how a lot of cities end up being gentrified. And we’re trying to go out and educate folks about what’s going on, including the attorneys in the state. To let them know that there’s a huge problem and there’s a great need. And we’ve been really successful in getting new folks in the door and to help out with these cases. And we’re really excited to continue this work. We have seen some success, particularly in Baltimore. So we’re going to keep going.
Paula: That fills me with some hope and some joy because when I drive through [00:24:00] Baltimore and I see the abandoned homes, I know there’s always a family. There’s a story behind that. They weren’t just abandoned. They weren’t just there and someone walked away. Most times…
Makeisha: Absolutely. Yeah. And then another thing that I that didn’t immediately come to mind is that we also help on the back end. So on the front end, we’re in the courtroom with, you know, we have an attorney there representing the individual clients, but then we’re also working behind the scenes to support legislation that addresses some of these issues. For example, I know a few years back we were huge proponents of changes to like the tax sale process or bills that basically… What ended up happening is they made it so that folks who had a late water bill were no longer going to be placed on the tax sale list.
And that made a huge difference in the number of folks who were able to avoid losing their homes. So yeah, there’s legislative efforts that are going on in the background that we are very tuned into. We kind of stay abreast of what’s going on and we come in and support and provide [00:25:00] testimony on different bills. Particularly when it’s an area that we’ve been working in, we’ve kind of gotten some anecdotal evidence from our clients. We can go in and kind of tell their stories to, you know, support those bills and get laws passed. It’s a great thing.
Paula: Grateful. I mean, this is something that needs more people to be aware of because, you know, sometimes that may be happening to folks who are in a particular city and those who can help probably abroad or, you know, other parts of the country, and they don’t even know that their folks can get that. So MVLS is really doing something that is outstanding. So if someone would like to, you know, know more about you, how can people find you online? Not you in particular, but find out more about…
Makeisha: yeah, of course. So, We have a website it’s www.mvlslaw.org. There you will [00:26:00] find a list of all of the types of cases that we can handle. You’ll find our income requirements. You will see a little bit about our mission and what we do, different types of new stories about things that we’ve been doing out in the community. There is an events calendar for some upcoming events that we might be having in your area. So I encourage folks to check that out. And then you can also give us a call. If you are in need of services, you can contact us. Our telephone intake line is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a. m. to 12 p. m. And that number is (410) 547-6537 for those who are listening and not watching.
Paula: Yes. And are you on any of the social media platform? Did you mention that?
Makeisha: I do not handle our social media, but I know that we are on Facebook and LinkedIn. I can’t say for sure if we have an Instagram page. I’ll have to check in with our communications manager. But I know that for a fact that we have Facebook [00:27:00] and we’re also on LinkedIn. I feel like we were on Twitter, or I think it’s called X now at one point, but I’m not sure.
Paula: Oh, wow Makeisha this has been awesome. And, you know, I always encourage those who have joined us to stay back behind and ask any questions that they may have because I mean I can’t cover everything within the time frame believe it or not we’ve been talking for over two for over 20 minutes at least and I’d like to say to those who are listening who haven’t joined us online that if you want to be a guest on my show please reach out to me on my website which is chattingwiththeexperts. com. I am also on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh. I am on Instagram. My handle there is at chat_experts_podcast and you can also find me on Facebook. Just [00:28:00] search for or look for Paula Okonneh there and ask if you can be a guest on the show. Makeisha, this has been very informative. Thank you. And please stay back so that everybody who has joined us will be able to ask you all the questions that I didn’t ask.
Makeisha: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me today. I’m happy to stick around and answer any questions that folks might have and ready to go.
Paula: Thank you.