Katherine Mazzaferri Interview 9

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Oral History of Katherine Mazzaferri
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of The Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Annamaria Steward, and the
interviewee is CEO Emeritus of the D.C. Bar Katherine Mazzaferri. The interview took place on
Sunday, November 17, 2024. This is the ninth chapter.
MS. STEWARD: Katherine, can you talk to us about the D.C. Bar’s involvement in pro
bono service and how you got that started?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Yes, Annamaria. When I came to the D.C. Bar in 1982, the pro bono
program, later called the Pro Bono Center, was then called the Public
Service Activities Program. Because of a referendum of the membership
in 1980, the Bar couldn’t use dues to support many of its programs,
including the Public Service Program.
In 1982, the Bar had a checkoff on its dues statement that we used
to support both the D.C. Bar Foundation and the Public Service Program.
But in 1983 when I saw how little money we had raised from the checkoff,
I was worried about the future of our program, and I hired a fundraiser
who continued working with us for many years afterward. The concept
was that the Bar’s Pro Bono Program would seek funds from individual
members through the checkoff, and the D.C. Bar Foundation would seek
funding from law firms.
In addition, in 1985, the Bar Board filed a petition to the D.C.
Court of Appeals to create the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts
(IOLTA) program. The funds from that program would go to the
Foundation so the Foundation would have a couple of sources of funds.
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Later, in 1988, we decided to incorporate the pro bono program. It
became the Public Services Activities Corporation (PSAC), a 501(c)(3), so
that contributions could be tax-deductible.
MS. STEWARD: How did the PSAC get started?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Public Services Activities had been part of the Bar from the very
beginning, but in 1990, Sally Determan, who was then the Bar president,
asked Stephen Pollak, who was chairing the Pro Bono Committee, to look
at how we were conducting pro bono. We hadn’t looked at it for a long
time, and Sally was concerned that we weren’t making as good use of our
resources as we could.
So, Steve Pollak, who is one of my heroes, chaired a committee
that did exhaustive research not only on what we were doing but also on
what kinds of programs existed around the country. Specifically, we
looked at programs in San Francisco and in Boston. We really borrowed
from other programs, asking their directors what they liked about their
programs, and what they would change or improve if they could. Steve
and his committee also interviewed legal services providers in Washington
D.C. to understand their strengths and needs. After a thorough study,
Steve and his committee made significant and far-reaching
recommendations to the Bar Board about totally revamping our pro bono
program.
During this effort, we decided that the lawyer referral service
component of pro bono wasn’t the best way to spend our limited funds.
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We also realized that to do pro bono in a focused way, we needed to
prioritize encouraging and mobilizing more volunteers. So, one of the key
recommendations of Steve Pollak’s committee was that we should use our
limited staff to create a “multiplier effect” by training and working with
volunteers to deliver legal services. Volunteers would be a tremendous
asset to the Bar, and we needed our expert legal staff and the staff of the
legal service providers to help the volunteers do this pro bono work well.
The Board adopted the committee’s recommendation that the Bar,
together with the Superior Court, study specific areas of unmet legal
needs. The goal was to figure out better ways to address certain types of
cases so that the matters would be more efficiently handled, the public,
including unrepresented litigants, would be better served, and the court
would have good resources to do its job. It would be a win-win all around.
That committee report was really a blueprint for the next decades of how
we handled pro bono. And I admired Steve’s thorough engagement in the
issues and creativity in seeking solutions.
MS. STEWARD: The Pro Bono Program was heading in the right direction. You had
fundraising going. You had new initiatives and studies happening. You
had big firm lawyers involved in service. What were some of the
challenges that were happening at that time?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: In 1992, the District of Columbia Council imposed a license fee for
lawyers, in addition to fees for other kinds of professionals. Some of our
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members thought the Bar was imposing this license fee, and 5,000 of our
members switched to inactive status.
In addition to the impact on the Bar itself, there was a tremendous
reduction in contributions to our pro bono program. As a result, in
September of that year, I had to ask the Board to authorize a reduction in
force for the pro bono program because we couldn’t pay for all of the
staff. It was a very hard moment for us because we were going in the right
direction, but suddenly we had to make a switch.
MS. STEWARD: At that time, you also hired a new director of the Pro Bono Program. Can
you talk about Maureen Thornton Syracuse?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Yes. I hired Maureen in 1992. She had staffed one of our task forces that
I’ll talk about, the Family Law Task Force, and had also worked with our
PSA Review Committee that Steve chaired, so we knew her, and she knew
us. She had a legal services background, and she really was one of the
architects of many of the pro bono efforts. She remained at the Pro Bono
Program until her retirement in 2011. She was a tremendous resource for
the Bar.
MS. STEWARD: She was there for twenty years?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Right.
MS. STEWARD: Let’s talk about some of the clinics that were established under her watch.
The first one was the Pro Se Divorce Clinic. Can you talk about why you
all felt the need for that clinic in the District of Columbia?
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MS. MAZZAFERRI: Consistent with the PSAC Review Committee’s recommendation, the Pro
Bono Program looked at an area of the law where the Bar could be helpful
in addressing unmet legal needs in partnership with the court. In the
family court of the Superior Court, there was a need to help pro se litigants
in divorce cases and to try to find some pro bono assistance for an
increasing volume of custody cases. The Family Law Task Force, cochaired by two expert family lawyers, Rita Bank and Linda Singer, was
created in September of 1992. Its work was completed in 1993 when the
Pro Se Divorce Clinic was established as a result of the task force’s
recommendation.
Members of the Bar’s Family Law section helped train and mentor
volunteers in that clinic, and they helped implement the pro se program.
They made information available through videos and a kiosk at the
courthouse. It was really a very expert task force that provided a real
service to the court and to the public.
As Maureen explained it to me, the family law bar was small and
was enthusiastic about creating vehicles for helping large numbers of pro
se litigants in simpler cases and engaging other volunteer lawyers in
providing services. The demand was way too big to handle, so they were
happy to train and mentor instead, the multiplier effect principle again.
MS. STEWARD: Katherine, was this the first time that the D.C. Bar had worked so
integrally with the court to provide resources for residents of the District
of Columbia?
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MS. MAZZAFERRI: Yes. And it was an excellent model.
MS. STEWARD: Let’s talk about the Law Firm Pro Bono Clinic. How was that started? I
know it later was renamed as the Advocacy and Justice Clinic, but can you
talk about the history of that clinic?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: That’s right. The challenge was to engage large law firms in our pro bono
program. Many of their lawyers had never handled cases in the Superior
Court, so the pro bono staff screened cases. Most cases were referred to us
by legal services providers, who, of course, were experts in the field. We
sent screened case files to the firms and did briefings at their offices
before their clinic nights. We asked firms to commit to two clinic nights
per year and agree to represent up to 15 clients from each clinic night.
On the days of the clinics, we’d have the teams of lawyers from the
firms come to the D.C. Bar headquarters, and we’d have areas set up for
them to interview potential clients. The legal services providers and our
staff were available to assist the lawyers from the firms at the clinics and
throughout their representation. By the way, Joan Strand, who was a
clinical professor at GWU Law School and later a D.C. Bar president, was
the subcommittee chair who helped design this concept.
So, the Pro Bono Program helped assure that the providers could
refer cases they couldn’t handle. The providers helped guide the law firm
lawyers, and sometimes they established long-term relationships.
During the same period, the ABA Pro Bono Project was launching
The Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge, later administered by the Pro Bono
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Institute. The Challenge asked large firms to donate 3 percent or 5 percent
of their billable hours to pro bono, with half of their hours devoted to lowincome client cases. Our clinic provided the firms with the solution to
address that challenge.
MS. STEWARD: How many firms signed up that first year?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: We wanted to recruit thirteen, and I think we had eighteen firms sign up
the first year. There was a tremendous generosity of spirit among the
members and the firms. It was quite remarkable.
MS. STEWARD: What other clinics did you create for the residents of the District?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: A Pro Bono Bankruptcy Clinic was created in 1994. The Advice and
Referral Clinic was created later, in part in response to cuts in Legal
Services Corporation funding. That clinic had our volunteers going out to
neighborhoods, which we thought was very important. One of the clinics
was in the Shaw neighborhood where Bread for the City had its
headquarters. The other was in Anacostia, initially at a Whitman-Walker
office, and later at Bread for the City’s Anacostia location. The first clinic
started in 1997, and the second started in the year 2000.
The monthly Saturday morning walk-in clinics at two locations at
the same time were remarkable. Members of D.C. Bar Sections (since
renamed as Communities) with the needed expertise volunteered, as did
many government lawyers. The voluntary bar associations were active,
and the Bar’s Board of Governors participated once a year.
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Then-Attorney General Janet Reno also volunteered at the
Anacostia site on her last Saturday in office. It was quite a wonderful
moment.
MS. STEWARD: You mentioned that Janet Reno, a U.S. Attorney General, actually
volunteered at the Anacostia site for the Advice and Referral Clinic. Can
you talk about government lawyer involvement in these clinics?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: We had a lot of government lawyers volunteering, and specifically in
1996, the Department of Justice joined our Law Firm Pro Bono Clinic.
There was a presidential executive order authorizing pro bono by
government lawyers to be coordinated by the Department of Justice. An
opinion from the Office of Government Ethics provided guidance, and the
new policy was announced at the D.C. Bar’s winter conference by thendeputy attorney general and former Bar president Jamie Gorelick. Janet
Reno spoke at the annual dinner that year.
Our Law Firm Pro Bono Clinic was the first pro bono opportunity
the DOJ approved for government lawyer participation under the new
policy. In any event, having the authority for government lawyers to do
pro bono was key because they became one of the largest groups of
lawyers volunteering at our Advice and Referral Clinic, as more and more
federal agencies established programs. At the clinic, there were expert
lawyers there to assist them, enabling them to provide a real service to the
public. It was a win-win for all of us.
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MS. STEWARD: Katherine, we have been talking about clinics. We started with the Pro Seplus Divorce Clinic and then the Law Firm Pro Bono Clinic, the Pro Bono
Bankruptcy Clinic, and the Advice and Referral Clinic. These clinics were
the outgrowth of task forces. Can you talk about how these task forces
created these clinics, and maybe use the Landlord Tenant Task Force as an
example?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: The Landlord Tenant Task Force, co-chaired by Phyllis Thompson and
Caryl Bernstein, issued a report in 1998. This was again one of those
studies that the PSAC Review Committee had envisioned. It documented
how tenants really lacked representation and recommended reforms,
including access to lawyers in the courthouse and a way to make an array
of legal services available to tenants.
Once we had this report in the queue, we needed to figure out how
it would be implemented. So, when George Jones became Bar president in
2002, Maureen Syracuse and I approached him about making the
implementation of that very important study a reality. He wanted to take
that on, and he had the brilliant idea of asking Kim Keenan, who later
became a Bar president, to be chair. This was not her area of expertise, but
she understood the court, she understood process, and she understood how
to get constructive results.
The report of that Implementation Committee was issued in 2003.
Because of that committee, and this was a really stunning effort, the
Landlord Tenant Resource Center was created in 2004. It began as a pilot
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with Arnold & Porter committing to staff the resource center with
volunteers for six months, to help figure out logistics and identify
questions that tenants might be asking and how to prepare volunteers.
Then other firms signed up. Jim Sandman, then-managing partner of
Arnold & Porter, was among the first volunteers and he became a regular
volunteer at that clinic.
MS. STEWARD: This is just another example of the level of trust between the court and the
Bar because this report came out in 2003, and the very next year, the
Landlord Tenant Resource Center was created. I think we can’t overemphasize the quick turnaround on the studies that were coming out of the
Bar during this time.
MS. MAZZAFERRI: It was really impressive. The volunteers were excited about it, and I think
the court welcomed it. I have to say that I would sometimes take some of
our new leaders to the Landlord Tenant Resource Center to observe. It
always gave me such pride when the presiding judge in that court would
refer tenants just down the hall to the Landlord Tenant Resource Center,
which I knew was staffed by our pro bono staff together with volunteers
we had recruited. It made me very proud of the D.C. Bar.
MS. STEWARD: There was another task force that you all did. You did a task force for
family law, so you had done one before the clinic was created and then
you did another one. Can you talk about why you all felt the need for
another task force at that time?
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MS. MAZZAFERRI: Rita Bank and Meg McKinney co-chaired the second Family Law Task
Force, which was created at a time when the caseload of the Family Court
and the presence of pro se litigants with complex cases were straining
existing resources. The Task Force recommended reforms in case
processing and steps to facilitate limited scope representation, really to
increase the availability of representation at critical stages. So, we had a
very active task force working with the court to improve the entire process
for the court and for litigants.
MS. STEWARD: Can you explain to us the Community Economic Development program
and why it was created?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: We had heard from firms that they had many lawyers who were not
litigators but were very interested in doing pro bono, using their existing
skills and expertise. They potentially were a tremendous asset for the
public. So, after several years of research and planning by a CED
subcommittee of the Pro Bono Committee led by Shirley Higuchi and
fundraising to add expert legal staff to support the project, we created the
Community Economic Development Program in 1998.
At the time, the District of Columbia was in dire financial shape,
with a control board in place. The burden for providing social and other
services was falling on the nonprofit community. Consistent with the Pro
Bono Program’s mission to provide pro bono services to the low-income
community, we shaped our project to provide corporate and transactional
legal services to nonprofits and small businesses serving their needs.
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We asked firms to do for their CED project nonprofit clients what
they did for their corporate clients – develop long-term relationships and
handle their corporate needs as they emerged. For small businesses, the
project offered periodic clinics where business owners or would-be
entrepreneurs could receive advice and brief services on specific legal
problems. Over time the project developed a robust training program for
local nonprofit organizations, small businesses, and nonprofit board
members.
There were both nonprofit organizations and small businesses in
the District that needed the help of lawyers to run their organizations, and
we had very talented business lawyers in firms looking to offer their
services pro bono. We screened nonprofit clients carefully, to provide
legal help to organizations that would have a real impact in the
community. It was a wonderful match.
Jim Jones and Beverly Wilbourne were the first co-chairs of that
committee. They were an impressive team, and they helped bring a whole
new cadre of firms and lawyers into our pro bono fold. The CED Project
really was an expansion of the vision of the original PSAC Review
Committee, but very much based on the principles the PSAC Committee
had articulated. At the time, it was rare for a bar-sponsored pro bono
program to include a transactional project. It’s outside the typical pro bono
focus on litigation and serving individuals.
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Moreover, we couldn’t just say we would represent nonprofits. We
had to create a framework for focusing on organizations serving the
District’s low-income communities to be true to our mission and charter,
and we had figure out how the “multiplier effect” could be achieved by
asking big firms to take on long term partnerships, generating lots of legal
work from one placement.
Adding to the complexity was the question of how to fund this new
project. We couldn’t get started without funding for a staff attorney with
relevant expertise. A $10,000 donation from the Corporation Section (later
Community) provided us the credibility to ask the Meyer Foundation for
funding because we could say the lawyers were already supporting us. The
fact that we were able to create a brand-new program at a time when so
much else was going on is a tribute to Maureen’s serious dedication to
serving the public and creating opportunities for our members to provide
pro bono service.
MS. STEWARD: Another study you all did in the 1990s was the Bar Foundation study. Tell
us about that.
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Andrew Marks was the Bar president in 1998, when we created the Bar
Foundation Study Committee. The Foundation was the sister organization
that did so many important things, but we hadn’t looked at it in the way
that we had looked at our own pro bono program. In fact, the Foundation
hadn’t been studied since its creation in 1977.
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This study committee was chaired by Philip Lacovara, and Steve
Pollak once again stepped up to volunteer by chairing one of the major
subcommittees. The purpose of the study was to develop a plan for
improving funding of the Bar Foundation and how it operated. We needed
a strong foundation to complement the Bar’s pro bono program and all the
many legal services providers that the Foundation funded. We had studied
the pro bono program and improved its funding, and now we needed to be
sure that the Foundation also had a strong source of funding and structure.
The study committee’s report outlined ways to improve the
Foundation’s fundraising including targeting and increasing IOLTA
funding.
The study committee also recommended expanding the
Foundation’s board, which previously had been limited to past D.C. Bar
presidents, and increasing the role of its advisory committee. At the end of
the day the D.C. Bar Foundation became the largest funder of legal
services in the District of Columbia.
MS. STEWARD: For those who don’t know, can you explain the difference between the
D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center and the D.C. Bar Foundation and their
relationships to the D.C. Bar?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: The D.C. Bar Board appoints the board of the D.C. Bar Foundation, which
is a sister organization to the Pro Bono Center. In a nutshell, the Pro Bono
Center provides pro bono services to the public and works closely with
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legal services providers to provide that service, while the Bar Foundation
provides funding to legal services organizations.
MS. STEWARD: In addition to the relationship with the funding of legal service providers
and the creation of services that benefit the residents of the District of
Columbia, the D.C. Bar became active in using technology to help provide
legal services across the country. Can you talk about probono.net and
lawhelp.org and how the Bar was involved in them?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: This all began with probono.net, which was started in New York City as
an on-line support for pro bono lawyers. Some of the firms in the District
of Columbia knew about it and wanted it here. Working with the
Consortium of Legal Services Providers, our pro bono staff agreed to take
the coordinating role as various programs contributed content and the
probono.net/dc website was rolled out. The Bar Foundation covered the
fee to probono.net.
In 2003, with a technology grant from the Legal Services
Corporation, the Pro Bono Program began working with the
Neighborhood Legal Services Program to create a companion website
called Lawhelp.org aimed at the general public. This was in collaboration
with the Consortium of Legal Services Providers, the Bar Foundation, and
the public libraries. LawHelp.org/dc was launched in 2005 to help provide
legal information, access to legal services providers, and interactive
pleadings and forms.
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MS. STEWARD: We’ve been talking about the various clinics that were created in the
1990s. Additional clinics were created also in the 2000s. Can you talk
about some of those clinics?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: In 2004, we expanded the Pro Bono Advice and Referral Clinic to provide
a clinic in Spanish. D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Vanessa Ruiz and past
Bar president Brigid Benitez had launched a quarterly advice and referral
clinic with Spanish-speaking volunteers at the Carlos Rosario School.
Over time, we were able to increase the languages to include Amharic,
French, and some other languages because as immigration began to
change, we needed to address the different members of the public who
were coming to our clinics. Then in 2011 we changed the name to the
Immigration Clinic, to reflect the reality that immigration issues were
most of the questions posed.
MS. STEWARD: During his term as Bar president, John Cruden was active in getting
government lawyers involved in pro bono service. We originally talked
about Janet Reno and the expansion of government lawyers and the rule
that was created from that experience, but it continued in 2005. Can you
explain to us what was happening at that time?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: John really wanted to use his term to get more government lawyers
involved in pro bono. I would call him a man with a mission. On his first
day in office, he wrote to the general counsels of all the federal agencies
asking them to launch pro bono programs for their attorneys or to expand
any existing programs.
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He asked Maureen Syracuse, our pro bono director, to work
together with Laura Klein, who was the Department of Justice’s federal
government pro bono manager. As Maureen tells it, John initiated a
meeting with the general counsel of the Department of Defense and the
general counsels of the Armed Services. John opened the meeting, setting
the stage, so to speak. Laura explained the authority of government
lawyers to do pro bono work and Maureen explained our Pro Bono
Program. They later worked with these agencies and others to help them
set up their programs.
John really opened the doors to government lawyers becoming one
of the largest groups of volunteers we had at the Pro Bono Program. As
time went on, we were able to declare that the Department of Justice was
the largest law firm in the Advocacy and Justice Clinic. That’s quite a
remarkable accomplishment.
MS. STEWARD: Thank you, John Cruden. In addition to government lawyers’ involvement
in the Advocacy and Justice Clinic, there were numerous centers that
sprang up to benefit the residents of the District of Columbia. Can you just
give us an overview or even name what these clinics were?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: In 2006, there was a Probate Resource Center. In 2007, there was a Tax
Sale Resource Center. In 2008, there was a Consumer Law Resource
Center. Our Superior Court welcomed pro bono help for unrepresented
litigants in each of these centers.
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MS. STEWARD: The Access to Justice Commission was created around this time, correct?
Can you talk about what that was and the role the D.C. Bar played in that
Commission?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: The ATJ Commission was created by a court order in 2005, resulting from
a proposal by the Consortium of Legal Services Providers. There was a lot
of discussion to flesh out its mission. The D.C. Bar supported wholly the
creation of this Commission. Peter Edelman was chair of this
Commission. The ATJ obtained public funding for legal services in 2006,
the first time it sought it, and that funding continued and expanded. The
District of Columbia went from the very last to the first in per capita stateor local-level public funding for legal services in 2006. This achievement
was directly related to the efforts of the ATJ Commission and Peter
Edelman in particular.
MS. STEWARD: Katherine, we’ve talked about the numerous clinics and resource centers
that came out of the D.C. Bar in collaboration with the courts. But funding
these centers and making sure that resources were available was tricky.
Can you talk about the different ways that the Bar worked to come up with
financial resources for these projects?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: In 1993 when Mark Tuohey was the Bar’s president-elect and
Jamie Gorelick was the outgoing Bar president, Jamie pulled together
some of the past presidents to consider creating the very first Pro Bono
Presidents’ Reception. Some of us recall Jamie saying that she didn’t want
our pro bono program to fail on her watch, so what she did was create a
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Presidents’ Reception in Mark’s name. Mark wrote to 400 of his closest
friends, and the annual Presidents’ Reception was born. It was really a
wonderful way to raise money and to bring together all the players who
were so active in our pro bono efforts.
We also had several of what we called Pro Bono Breakfasts.
Rob Weiner was the Bar president for the first one in 1995. He asked the
four chief judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals, the D.C. Superior Court,
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. District Court
to join him in calling together the managing partners of the 50 largest
firms in Washington D.C. for a briefing on the state of legal services in the
District. Invitations were non-transferable, and the Bar’s conference room
was crowded with managing partners.
There had been dramatic cuts in legal services funding. The firms
were asked to make specific commitments of new pro bono resources and
to report those commitments to the Bar, so the Bar could report the results
to the chief judges. The firms were given a menu of suggested
commitments, sending one or more of their lawyers on a rotating basis to a
legal service provider for six months at a time, joining or increasing their
commitment to the Advocacy and Justice Clinic, creating a clinic in
partnership with a legal services provider, or establishing a fellowship.
As a result of the careful planning, execution, and follow-up, there
was a real ramping up of pro bono partnerships in the District. It was
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wonderful for the leadership of the courts, the Bar and the firms to come
together for this shared purpose.
There was a second breakfast in 2002. After research and planning
with Bar presidents John Nields and John Payton during their terms, Bar
president George Jones convened the meeting. Pro bono hours in large
firms were flagging in the tough economy around the burst of the dot-com
bubble in 2001, so the focus was on asking firms to commit to specific
steps to increase their pro bono hours, and to report on their results
annually to the D.C. Bar. The framework was drawn from the Law Firm
Challenge, with the permission of the Pro Bono Institute. It was named the
Pro Bono Initiative.
A third breakfast was held in 2007 while Jim Sandman was the Bar
president. The goal of this breakfast was to expand the firms invited to be
part of the Pro Bono Initiative to the next 25 in size. I believe this got us
down to firms with around 50 lawyers – which was the Pro Bono
Initiative’s cutoff for joining the Law Firm Challenge. He pushed firms to
expand their pro bono services, and speakers gave concrete examples of
what worked and the benefits to a firm and its lawyers. Again, the followup was critical. So, we had a lot of opportunities to work with the leaders
of our profession to address pro bono.
MS. STEWARD: This growth of the Pro Bono Program occurred under Maureen Thornton
Syracuse as its executive director. She was with you for twenty years. Can
you comment on her service?
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MS. MAZZAFERRI: Maureen’s work was nothing short of masterful. She had a knack for
finding volunteers and motivating both staff and volunteers. She
recognized legal needs, and established excellent relationships with the
law firms, legal service providers and the courts. All of this enabled us to
design, offer and sustain a remarkable array of pro bono services.
MS STEWARD: In 2011 you got a new executive director. Can you talk about who became
executive director in 2011 and some of the initiatives that occurred at that
time?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Sure. In 2011 Monika Kalra Varma became executive director of the
Pro Bono Program. She initiated and completed its first strategic plan in
over twenty years. The strategic plan was designed to ensure that the
resources and efforts were really going to serve the greatest needs and fill
the gaps in the District.
This was a significant effort, engaging 1,000 stakeholders across
the District, including law firms, solo practitioners, government agencies,
the legal services community, and the courts to share where the greatest
needs were and where there might no longer be significant needs, as well
as to identify where the Pro Bono Program was uniquely positioned to
make a difference. It really fine-tuned the programming to ensure the
greatest impact possible. It also resulted in changing the name from the
Pro Bono Program to the Pro Bono Center.
MS. STEWARD: We talked about the creation of the Access to Justice Commission by court
order in 2005, but in 2013, the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center was actively
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involved with the Commission. Can you talk about the work that occurred
at that point?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: Monika came to us as a human rights attorney, so she was eager to help
address the crisis in evictions in the District of Columbia. She understood
how fundamental housing is for families in poverty. Jim Sandman, chair
of the Pro Bono Committee at the time, and Peter Edelman, who chaired
the Access to Justice Commission, worked with Monika and
Jess Rosenbaum, the executive director of the Commission, to create the
Right to Housing Initiative.
Monika’s human rights lens was critical because it shaped how the
initiative’s work was structured. It wasn’t just serving a need for housing,
which is obviously very important, but it also addressed the systems that
created the lack of housing. This initiative engaged clients and potential
clients to get a deeper understanding of the barriers to housing in the
District and brought together the legal services community to implement
the program.
The focus was on providing counsel to tenants facing eviction from
subsidized or public housing; revamping the broken shelter and
emergency housing system; preserving existing affordable housing and
increasing production of affordable housing; and litigating to enforce fair
housing laws and advocating for policy changes. A key goal was to reduce
evictions dramatically by increasing access to pro bono representation for
very vulnerable tenants living in subsidized housing. Monika was
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instrumental in recruiting several of the major law firms that committed to
taking cases in the housing area. It brought our community together in a
way that was very effective.
MS. STEWARD: Katherine, when you look at the contributions of the D.C. Bar from your
tenure from 1982 through 2017, what Pro Bono Center accomplishments
are you most proud of?
MS. MAZZAFERRI: That’s a tough question, but in general, I would say the work that we did
with the D.C. Superior Court to identify ways to improve justice for the
public and the work of the court. We were able to engage in so many
studies with the court that resulted in changes that helped the public and
the court.
I am very proud about the creation of the Landlord Tenant
Resource Center, as a physical space at the courthouse where the presiding
judge in the Landlord Tenant Court could send litigants, and the follow-on
effort of the Right to Housing Initiative that built on that work. It was
significant that we were helping individuals keep their housing, which is
such a basic need. These were remarkable collaborative efforts which in
the long run helps the public in the District of Columbia.
MS. STEWARD: Thank you, Katherine.