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Volunteer Legal Service Program (VLSP)ShareO’Melveny & Myers Summer Associates: Only Need 48 Hours to Get Favorable Result for HAP Client
By Alan Zhao, HAP Summer Intern
Richard Daniels* is a 37-year old man living in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. Suffering from depression and chronic pain, he was being evicted from his home for alleged noise disturbances. After initial intake at VLSP’s Homeless Advocacy Project (HAP), his case was assigned to two O’Melveny and Myers (OMM) summer associates, Joel Flemming and Kelly Martin, through HAP’s Summer Associate in Public Service Program.
OMM attorney Flora Vigo supervised Flemming and Martin on this matter. Together, they successfully settled the case, allowing the client to remain in his home. When the case was first assigned to Flemming and Martin, the client was two weeks away from eviction and had no settlement conference in sight. Once they took on the representation, however, it took only one phone call from Vigo for the opposing counsel to begin discussing settlement agreements. Believing that the initial settlement offer was vague and overbroad, Martin and Flemming demonstrated their willingness to take the case to trial by issuing discovery requests. Opposing counsel first claimed he was willing to go to trial, but re-considered when he realized Flemming and Martin had more time and motivation to prepare. Eventually, both sides came to consensus. Daniels agreed to abide by specific behavioral conditions in return for his landlord allowing him to remain in his housing. The whole process was a learning experience for the two summer associates. The pair had the opportunity to write motions, file and argue them, and learn the result, all in less than 48 hours. They had hours of client contact and directly negotiated a settlement agreement with opposing counsel. There were many ten-minute stretches in which the two, in their own words, “learned more about litigation than in ten months of classes.” But the greatest learning experience was the human one. As Flemming and Martin relayed, Daniels had been “tossed around by government agencies all his life.” But this time, he had advocates fighting on his behalf. The two were moved by how grateful he was for the simple fairness of having legal representation. * Name changed for privacy. |
The program is a collaboration between HAP and San Francisco law firms. After receiving training, summer associates in the program work with mentors on individual cases throughout the summer, gaining experience in client interviewing, issue identification, negotiation, drafting of legal briefs and memoranda, and discovery.