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For the third-consecutive year, DC’s legal community came together to raise more than $3 million for DC Legal Aid through the Making Justice Real Campaign, setting a new record at $3,305,388. Nearly half of the total was raised in the last week of the two-month drive, which ran from June 6 to August 5. “It is incredibly humbling for thousands of people from nearly every major law firm in the District to unite behind Legal Aid’s mission,” said Joan McKown, President of Legal Aid’s Board of Trustees and a Partner at Jones Day. “Especially at a time of increasing need for our client community, this is unbelievably good news.”

Legal Aid is deeply concerned about Chair Mendelson’s recent decision to change the committee referral for the Domestic Worker Employment Rights Amendment Act of 2022 (Bill 24-712). As a strong supporter of the Domestic Worker Employment Rights bill, we believe his re-referral could effectively stall the bill’s progress during the final year of Council Period 24. This triple referral causes an unnecessary delay that will hurt essential workers, such as home health aides, to whom we regularly provide direct legal services. Legal Aid urges Business Committee Chairman McDuffie and Government Operations Committee Chairman Robert White to consider and mark up the measure immediately (September or October) when the Council returns from recess so that the Council can pass the bill before the end of the year.

For the month of July 2022   

For the month of June 2022   

The District of Columbia will soon have in place what may be the most progressive law in the nation protecting consumers from unfair and abusive debt collection practices. On June 7, 2022, the DC Council passed the Protecting Consumers from Unjust Debt Collection Practices Amendment Act of 2021 (B24-0357). The new law now awaits the Mayor’s signature and a congressional review period before becoming applicable on January 1, 2023. In the meantime, the Council already has put in place an emergency version of the law, which it also voted to extend at the June 7 legislative meeting.