Hello, LAWM Friends!

Now that a few months have passed, we can look back at 2022 and put last year’s work into context. We do this because it guides our strategy to make an even bigger impact going forward. We learned that:

  • The “pandemic housing crisis” may not be in the news anymore, but thousands of our low-income West Michigan neighbors struggle to find and afford housing. Over half of our work focused on housing cases, keeping roofs over our clients’ heads.
  • About one in every five of our cases was a family law case, during which we often represented adults and kids who were surviving abuse and needed help to get safe.
  • We closed 641 Clean Slate expungement cases, helping West Michigan residents who long ago “did their time” for old mistakes and now can use their clean slate to access better job and housing opportunities.
2022 in Review
Farewell to our Summer Law Clerks!
Ugh. We must say goodbye to our summer law clerks, who have been part of the LAWM family for the past several weeks. Thank you(!) Ebony, Marissa, and Tessa for your hard work on behalf of our clients, and for sharing your energy and enthusiasm with us. We will miss you!

We were curious about what they enjoyed most during their time here, so we asked them. And in their words...
Statewide Honor for a LAWM Pro Bono Volunteer
We are so proud that our longtime friend and pro bono volunteer James R. Rinck is receiving the State Bar of Michigan’s 2023 John W. Cummiskey Pro Bono Award.

The award “fosters awareness of the need for involvement of the private bar in delivering legal services to the poor, by giving public recognition each year to a Michigan lawyer who has made a significant pro bono contribution to this effort.”

Boy, does Jim fit the bill. We have relied on Jim for years to represent Legal Aid clients with tough cases. He is an exemplary pro bono advocate, and we are thrilled for Jim to receive statewide recognition for his service. Also, the Cummiskey Award is especially important to us here at LAWM because John W. Cummiskey was a decades-long supporter and a pro bono champion in West Michigan’s legal community. 
🎉 Congrats, Jim! 🎉
We're Hiring!

The CVLAP program places attorneys statewide, and we will host this attorney in our Grand Rapids office. Please help us spread the word about this and other LAWM job opportunities. 
Every gift changes lives. Thank you!