Challenging Supervision Issues in Legal Aid: An MIE Webinar

Challenging Supervision Issues in Legal Aid:  An MIE Webinar with

Katherine W. Shank, Director, Volunteer Services Unit, LAF Chicago

Lisa Krisher, Director of Litigation, Georgia Legal Services Program

Adolfo Olivas, Senior Attorney - Manager, Immigration Law Team, The Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio LLC

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

2:00 – 3:30 pm EST

Legal aid managers and supervisors face challenging supervision issues on a daily or weekly basis.  Often, the issues are challenging to us because we have not experienced them previously. But, in most cases other supervisors have faced these, or similar, issues and have developed effective strategies to analyze and manage them.

Have you:

• Supervised an attorney who resisted supervision or change? 
• Implemented policy changes that staff did not like?
• Managed a significant expansion or reduction in staffing?
• Supervised a lawyer who wanted you to be involved in every decision?
• Worked with office mates who gossiped and stirred up trouble?
• Managed a staff member addicted to drama?
• Supervised a lawyer who did not want to learn new skills or practice areas?

If you have faced challenges like these, this 90-minute webinar offers you the chance to pose your supervision issue to our panel of experienced legal aid managers and learn how they analyze it and how they would address it.

As a part of the registration for this webinar, participants will be asked to answer the questions below.

1. What is your most challenging management or supervision issue? Why is it challenging?  Describe when and how it arises.  Include as many details as possible to help the panel understand the issue.

2. What is the most frustrating part of your job as a manager?  Why is it frustrating? How have you tried to deal with these issues? Describe when and how they arise.  Include as many details as possible to help the panel understand the issue.

The panel will select several of the challenges identified to address in the webinar.   In order to encourage candor and comfort, we will redact any identifying information from the question and not identify of the questioner or their program. We may set the stage for a question with an introduction along the lines of, “The next question comes from a middle manager in an urban program with multiple offices.”

For each challenging issue selected, our speakers will:

• Describe the issue and explore underlying considerations;
• Discuss why it is both challenging and important;
• Identify factors to consider in analyzing the issue;
• Identify the risks of ignoring it; and
• Offer a variety of strategies to address it.

Webinar Presenters:

 Lisa Krisher is the Director of Litigation with Georgia Legal Services Program where she has responsibility for its advocates’ legal work. LSC-funded GLSP covers 154 of Georgia’s 159 counties, all outside of Atlanta, with ten offices. Lisa has been with GLSP her entire career. In addition to her own litigation caseload, Lisa has supervised the legal work of many law students, paralegals and lawyers. Lisa is responsible for GLSP’s training program and has presented at a variety of national legal education programs including MIE’s supervision trainings. Lisa received the 1997 State Bar of Georgia’s Access to Justice Committee’s Dan Bradley Legal Services Award and the 2013 Civil Kutak-Dodds Prize for contributions to equal justice.

 Adolfo Olivas was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1981. In his 35 years of practice, Adolfo as been a trial attorney involved in various areas including medical malpractice, personal injury, Social Security disability, family and juvenile law. In 2005, Adolfo left private practice and joined The Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati as a Senior Attorney with litigation and supervisory responsibilities in juvenile guardian ad litem and family law matters. The Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio created an Immigration practice group in 2009. Adolfo manages this team of attorneys.

Katherine W. Shank is the Director of Volunteer Services at LAF (Legal Assistance Foundation), the largest civil legal aid program in Chicago Cook County, Illinois. Kate oversees all of LAF’s pro bono efforts including project development, volunteer recruitment, volunteer training, law firm and corporate relations, law student recruitment and management, and volunteer recognition. Kate also manages the legal aid statewide VISTA program. She began her career at LAF in 2001 representing clients in family law matters and spent several years as a general litigator also handling bankruptcies and subsidized housing eviction defense. As a Supervising Attorney, Kate concentrated her practice in the areas family law, domestic violence, and custody matters. 

  Gene King is the former director of the Ohio Poverty Law Center and a career legal aid lawyer and manager. He is now consulting on staff development, executive recruitment and policy advocacy with legal aid programs and nonprofit advocacy groups.  Gene will facilitate this webinar.

Registration for this webinar is:

$75 for MIE subscribers

$100 for non-subscribers

With your registration for this webinar, you may gather multiple staff to view the presentation around one computer.  Multiple computers and/or multiple offices require separate individual registrations.

Please register and pay separately, by following this two-step process:

1. REGISTER HERE to get your link to access the webinar:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5937876640513131523

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email from gotowebinar with a link to the webinar. 

Then don't forget to pay!

2.  HOW TO PAY

Click on the link "Register with Go to Webinar Then Pay Here."  It is at the top of this page. 

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