Newsletter

Newsletter

The Clearinghouse Welcomes New Board Members

The Clearinghouse is pleased to announce the addition of five attorneys to its board of directors.

The following members were elected to serve as officers:

Lawyers Clearinghouse Celebrates 20 Years

The Lawyers Clearinghouse celebrated its 20th anniversary in June at a reception hosted by Goulston & Storrs. Co-founder and former president of the board, David Abromowitz, welcomed the capacity crowd and congratulated the Clearinghouse on its 20 years of accomplishments.

Kristine McDonald of Brockton Interfaith Community thanked build affordable homes for working families in Brockton. the many pro bono attorneys and their firms who provided pro bono representation to the group in their quest to Awards were presented to Foley Hoag LLP; Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP; Bingham McCutchen LLP; and DLA Piper US LLP.

Board president, Jeffrey Sacks, introduced guest speaker Rep. Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who spoke on a range of issues including the changing climate in Congress to address the mortgage crisis and a number of initiatives on which he and his colleagues are currently working.

Following Rep. Frank’s comments, board members Douglas Henry and Cindy Rowe presented Stephen Nolan, a board member and past president, with the Clearinghouse’s Leadership Award. Steve had everyone smiling as he described his many years of involvement with the Lawyers Clearinghouse and his extended term as its president. He praised the agency’s recent accomplishments and looked forward to staying active on the board.

Foreclosure Prevention Training A Success

On April 9th, nearly forty people packed a large conference room at Rackemann Sawyer & Brewster to attend a 1-hour training on refinancing to help with the Homeownership Preservation Partnership Pilot (HPPP) project. The HPPP is a joint project of Urban Edge, Nuestra Comunidad, United Way, Citizens Bank, City of Boston and the Lawyers Clearinghouse. Leslie Cooke, Esq. of Chicago Title Insurance, Co. led the training, using material prepared by her as well as a package of forms prepared by the Lawyers Clearinghouse to walk attendees through the steps involved in closing residential loans and the various forms they would likely encounter. Despite the fact that the training overran by 30 minutes, most of the attorneys stayed for the entire 90-minute session.

Pro Bono Superstar - Don Pinto

In early 2002, Don Pinto of Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster volunteered to assist HAP, Inc., a Springfield non-profit housing agency, with a legal request made to the Lawyers Clearinghouse. HAP had received a Chapter 40B comprehensive permit to build 27 units of desperately needed affordable housing in Amherst, and that permit had been appealed by a large, well-organized, highly motivated neighborhood association. After extensive discovery and an important summary judgment decision in HAP’s favor (holding that the Amherst ZBA could issue a comprehensive permit even though the town had already reached the statutory threshold of 10% affordable housing), the case was tried in the fall of 2003. The Land Court ruled in favor of HAP and its co-defendant the Amherst ZBA on all issues, and upheld HAP’s comprehensive permit. The plaintiffs appealed, and last year the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the Land Court’s decision in all respects, holding that city or town that has reached the statutory threshold of 10% affordable housing under Chapter 40B can continue to grant comprehensive permits if a higher level of affordable housing is “consistent with local needs” in that community. The SJC’s decision is reported as Boothroyd v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Amherst, 449 Mass. 333 (2007).

While the Chapter 40B appeal was pending before the Land Court, one of the plaintiffs in that case, a direct abutter, filed a separate Land Court case in which he alleged that he had acquired a prescriptive easement across the middle of HAP’s land. Don agreed to represent HAP pro bono in that case as well. The case went to trial in the summer of 2004, resulting in a Land Court decision that the plaintiff had established the claimed easement. Don, on behalf of HAP, appealed, and the Appeals Court reversed the Land Court’s decision and dismissed the case. The Appeals Court’s decision is reported as Boothroyd v. Bogartz, 68 Mass. App. Ct. 40 (2007).

Don represented HAP in the two principal cases (the comprehensive permit appeal and the prescriptive easement claim) through trial on a pro bono basis. The value of his time, plus the related disbursements (which were donated by his firm, Rackemann Sawyer & Brewster) was over $225,000. Don agreed to handle the appeals in those cases, as well as two additional trial court cases spawned by the prescriptive easement claim, at a substantially discounted rate. The total value to HAP of that discount was about $25,000, bringing the total value of the contributed work to over $250,000.

In recognition of his extraordinary commitment to pro bono work over the course of more than five years which resulted in the SJC decision last year supporting a town’s 40B development decision, Don is our Pro Bono Superstar. This SJC decision will help numerous communities’ and nonprofit agencies’ efforts to maintain and increase the stock of affordable and sustainable housing across the Commonwealth for low-income people.


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