8.30 am: NAPIL (now Equal Justice Works) Fellow Megan Blamble, whose project focuses on special education needs in the District, accompanies a parent to her child's annual Individual Education Plan (IEP) meeting at Kimball Elementary school. Megan helps the parent advocate for modifications in the student's plan based on new evaluation data, including increased hours of specialized instruction in the classroom and additional hours of speech and language therapy.

9:00 am: Administrative Assistant Jeannette Henderson and Legal Assistant Patricia Roulhac greet our first intake applicant of the day, informing her that a lawyer will be out to meet with her shortly. Jeannette begins processing contributions and paying bills received in yesterday's mail. Pat checks Legal Aid's voice mail and forwards messages from clients to their attorneys.

9:05 am: Volunteer intake attorney Marcus Meeks, an associate at the law firm of Arent Fox, is at Legal Aid performing intake for the morning, supervised by Arnold & Porter loaned associate Erica Williams. Marcus conducts an in-depth interview of a woman seeking to regain custody of her child. Legal Aid ultimately accepts this case for full representation.

9:30 am: Eve Runyon, a loaned associate from the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, arrives at D.C. Superior Court to meet her client who is seeking a civil protection order against an ex-boyfriend who has repeatedly abused, threatened, and, most recently, assaulted Eve's client. Once the court grants the civil protection order, Eve will assist her client in securing physical custody of her minor child as well as obtaining an arrest warrant for the client's ex-boyfriend.

10:00 am: Director of Administration Ed Haralson researches a computer virus threat before reconciling bank accounts and preparing monthly financial reports, converting them from Excel to HTML format for emailing to board members. He sends email and voice mail messages to all staff reminding them that at 8 pm, after they have left for the day, he will "re-index" the client intake database and run a diagnostic on the network server's hard drives.

10.15 am: Jody Cummings, a loaned associate from Steptoe & Johnson, LLP goes to the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) General Counsel's Office to review his client's Section 8 file in preparation for an upcoming preliminary injunction and contempt hearing arising out of an illegal eviction complaint. After they receive the PI, Jody will carry forward the client's underlying illegal eviction action against her landlord and seek money damages on her behalf.

10:30 am: Skadden Fellow Julie Becker appears at a DCHA administrative hearing on behalf of a subsidized housing tenant who, due to administrative oversight, was wrongfully terminated from the subsidized housing program. At the hearing, DCHA agrees to reinstate the tenant's subsidy, and the landlord ultimately dismisses his eviction case against the tenant.

11:00 am: Supervising Attorney Lisa Vogel goes with a client to the Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED), office of Corporation Counsel to explain to a supervisor there that the District of Columbia has been unlawfully retaining the client's child support money. Lisa ultimately succeeds in getting the child support distributed to her client.

11:30 am: Staff attorney Rachel Halperin speaks with legal service attorneys from across the country who work on child support issues. Rachel is collecting data on the format different states use for their monthly notices issued to child support customers setting forth collections and distributions of child support monies. Legal Aid will submit this information, along with a proposed model notice, to CSED.

1:00 pm: Legal Intern Rob Lindley, a second year law student at the George Washington University Law School on his second stint as a Legal Aid intern, performs a "court run" to D.C. Superior Court, filing pleadings, copying court documents, and checking the status of pending cases.

1:30 pm: Staff Attorney Kristin Henrikson telephones the Department of Human Services (DHS) on behalf of a client whose Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits were reduced because of her alleged failure to comply with welfare-reform work requirements. Kristin advises the DHS employee that the client is in her final four months of pregnancy and thus is no longer subject to the work requirements. Kristin further advises the DHS employee that the client reported her pregnancy to DHS when she first became aware of it, and that an employee from DHS visited the client in her home and visibly confirmed the pregnancy. After checking its files, DHS admits its mistake and reinstates the client's TANF benefits to the full amount, retroactive to the beginning of her final four months of pregnancy.

2:00 pm: Staff Attorney Tamara Jezic represents a Spanish-speaking client at an evidentiary hearing concerning housing code violations in the client's apartment in Columbia Heights. Among other things, the apartment contains broken windows, a collapsing ceiling, mice and peeling paint.

2:15 pm: The office of our two intake coordinators/investigators is bustling as Anna Smiles travels to a client's apartment in North East DC to photograph and document housing code violations, while Virginie Ladisch heads to the DC Jail to serve a subpoena on a father in a child support case. After returning from their investigations they return 23 telephone inquiries, advising some to come to Legal Aid's office for a full intake interview and referring others to providers who can meet the caller's need.

3:00 pm: Sarah Lichtman Spector, an Equal Justice Works fellow whose project focuses on access to health care, calls a DHS Section Chief to advocate on behalf of a client whose Medicaid was terminated because she missed the recertification deadline while she was in the hospital. The Section Chief reinstates Sarah's client's Medicaid for three months and agrees to send her another recertification form.

4:00 pm: Legal Director Eric Angel and Supervising Attorney Wendy Vaughn participate in a meeting with Judge Lee Satterfield and Judge Anita Josey-Herring as well as representatives from the Office of Corporation Counsel and the Mayor's Office to discuss statutorily required changes to DC Superior Court procedures to ensure that the safety of parents and children involved in cases before the Court is not jeopardized by Court practices.

4:15 pm: Office Support Coordinator Jessica Miescher telephones a mother seeking custody and child support, informing her that Rachel Strong at the law firm of Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White has agreed to represent the client via the Legal Aid pro bono program.

5:30 pm: Director of Social Work Services Sharon Cascone provides supervision to an intern studying for her masters degree in social work (MSW). The student is currently helping a Legal Aid client who is a mentally ill woman who does not currently receive treatment. The MSW intern works with the client's attorney in the landlord/tenant case to explore the client's feelings related to her conflicts with her landlord and to encourage the client's participation in a mental health care program. Ultimately the client may wish to find a new place to live and the MSW intern will assist her.