Alumni of the Advertising and Marketing practice have made great contributions to Kelley Drye and the legal community. We would like to share these contributions with you through profiles of select AdLaw alumni.
For our inaugural spotlight, we are catching up with Jennifer Ngai Lavallee, Supervising Attorney for the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, D.C.’s oldest and largest general civil legal services organization.
 Q: What areas does the Legal Aid Society help clients with? What are your daily duties?
Family law, pubic benefits, rental housing, and consumer law (including foreclosure prevention and debt collection defense). I supervise a team of attorneys advocating to protect the limited assets of low-income D.C. consumers through foreclosure prevention and debt collection defense; handling individual case work both in and out of litigation; working with the local courts and legislators to push for systemic reform to increase access to justice for low-income consumers.
Q: What are some of the biggest differences between your day-to-day work as a Supervising Attorney at Legal Aid and your work at Kelley Drye?
The substantive work is obviously very different, but in terms of day-to-day differences, the main one is probably that my work now largely entails matters that are in litigation in D.C. Superior Court and that affect the lives of individual clients in a very tangible way. At Kelley Drye the bulk of my work was done in connection with providing counseling to corporate clients on regulatory matters, but now my focus is on representing and advising individual clients in their court cases and drawing from those experiences to also push for broader, systemic reforms that promote access to justice for our client community.
Q: Kelley Drye has been involved in the Generous Associates Campaign, which is a fundraising drive run by associates at D.C. law firms each summer. What have you learned working on the other side of the Generous Associates Campaign?
I’ve learned how powerful a well-coordinated, associate-led, city-wide campaign can really be. The creativity and enthusiasm that our participating firms bring to the Generous Associates Campaign is truly amazing. The campaign raises about a quarter of Legal Aid’s total operating budget, so firms should take a lot of pride in the role they play to help keep low-income District residents in their housing, getting the public benefits they need to survive, protected from their abusers, and able to access a range of other high quality legal services.
Q: What do you do for fun/outside of the office?
I love to spend time outside and explore new places with my family. Going for a run without being tethered to a dog leash or stroller is a rare treat. Other than that -- seeing friends, eating good food, singing in the car, and playing the violin.
Q: What was the last book you read?
Answering this question literally: The Belly Button Book, by Sandra Boynton. Books I’m actually reading for myself? Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain, and A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman.
Read Jennifer’s full spotlight here. Learn more about the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia and how you can get involved at their website http://www.legalaiddc.org/who-we-are/. |
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Navigating the Legal Pitfalls of Augmented Reality
Partner Alysa Hutnik had her 2012 Mashable article “Navigating the Legal Pitfalls of Augmented Reality” re-published in the Internet Marketing Guide to Everything. The article notes that, while part of a niche industry, AR applications are being championed by tech players like Google and Nokia, and a host of mobile app developers have launched AR apps for the growing number of smartphones and portable computing devices. Read more…
TCPA Quarterly: Fall 2016
Alysa Hutnik joins Kelley Drye’s Full Spectrum podcast to discuss two recent FCC orders related to calls made by government contractors or for the purposes of collecting debts owed to the federal government, review a declaratory ruling issued this summer that loosened Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) restrictions on calls placed by schools and utility companies, and concludes with an overview of TCPA-related things to watch out for over the next few months. This podcast is the first in what will be a regular series devoted to covering noteworthy developments relating to the TCPA. This series will cover decisions from the FCC and federal courts, as well as any TCPA-related activity on Capitol Hill. Listen here...
Be sure to also to check out Kelley Drye’s monthly TCPA Tracker. |
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