Search

MBA to sponsor Know Your Rights!

Issue January 2014 By Michelle A. Keith

The Massachusetts Bar Association is excited to announce it is teaming up with the Women's Bar Association and Women's Bar Foundation of Massachusetts, the South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston, One Family Inc. (a nonprofit dedicated to ending family homelessness) and the law firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC to begin a Know Your Rights! program in February 2014. This will be the program's second year.

The goal of the program is to provide education on legal matters to leaders of local non-profit organizations that serve low-income women and their families and to bring together these organizations to share knowledge and strengthen connections, both professionally and personally, and provide an open forum for discussion. This program will consist of monthly classes on legal issues relating to housing, family law, employment, education, immigration and Criminal Offender Record Information. The sessions will be taught by a broad range of faculty that includes judges, in-house corporate counsel, government attorneys and members of the legal services community.

This year, through the generous support of the MBA, the classes will be webcasted in real time and recorded, allowing organizations across the state to participate. The nonprofit participants include the Pine Street Inn, LIFT, Cardinal Medeiros Center, YWCA Central Massachusetts, Safe Passage, REACH Beyond Domestic Violence, Housing Families, The Women's Center, The Children's Advocacy Center of Bristol County, YMCA Southcoast, YWCA Southeastern Massachusetts and the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality at UMass Dartmouth.

Michelle Keith is the chair of the MBA's Individual Rights & Responsibilities Section.