The Atlanta Lawyer April 2012 | Page 17

avlf complete, our dedicated Saturday Lawyer volunteer attorneys are able to do what they do best: achieve amazing results for our clients – clients who too often experience the legal system in a very different way than they do when we are all working on their behalf. Those accomplishments are regularly publicized and we can never thank our volunteer attorneys enough for their sacrifice of time and passionate concern. It should also not go unnoticed that volunteer interpreters – many of them paralegals at our partner law firms and corporations – and volunteer “Saturday Paralegals,” through a partnership with the Georgia Association of Paralegals – also give freely and generously of their time on Saturday and throughout the week to make our program more accessible and more efficient for our clients who too often struggle in squire Deposition Solutions was voted might prove helpful, systems that are neither. If mediation volunteer mediators from of Atlanta e Best Court Reporting Service the 2011” Bar Association The Daily answer Dispute Resolution Section- always Report the call to serve. If a landlord-tenant dispute escalates and an eviction is warm thank you to all of our clientstrained attorneys in our Eviction filed, AVLF’s expertly and employees Defense Program jump right in and represent our clients in dispossessory hearings, improving the outcome for the tenant in 100% of our eviction cases. Finally, when there are particularly complex legal issues present, expert attorneys – often senior partners from around the city – volunteer to consult with the attorney handling the case. New 404.495.0777 | www.esquiresolutions.com But even after all of that work by all of those volunteers, justice is too often still deferred. The same bad-actor that dodges service rarely satisfies a judgment willingly. Here, we face yet another challenge. Spotlight on In these situations, AVLF’s next group of Sponsor Bronze Level dedicated i n d i v i d u a l s t a k e s o v e r. AVLF’s Dollars for Judgments program volunteers – experts in collections work drawn from AVLF’s partnership with the State Bar ’s Creditors Rights Section (thanks to the leadership of Section Chairs Janis Rosser and Harriet Isenberg and a generous gift from the family of Jay Loeb) – apply their expertise to collect justice for the AVLF clients who become judgment-creditors as a result of the tireless work of all the aforementioned volunteers. All legal methods are employed. Slumlords and employers have to answer post-judgment discovery and even face being deposed. Bank accounts and wages are garnished. Liens are placed on assets – assets often first identified by investigator Nick Stanislo. If post-judgment discovery is ignored, the worst of these bad actors may face a bench warrant for their arrest. We hope that the money due is collected, but when that is impossible, we find that our clients at least feel that some justice was done. Bankruptcy has been forced in some cases, other defendants have disappeared, but – at the very least – our clients get closure and a feeling that someone, perhaps for the first time, really fought for them – that the system, perhaps for the first tim