This issue of Mass Dissent was written and edited by law students from schools in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The articles focus on a range of topics from habeas corpus and the struggle between the judicial, executive, and legislative branches, political protest at law school events, budget cuts in the state court system, and the 2011 NLG Northeast Regional Conference. The range of issues represented in these articles reveals some of the key topics that are important to law students today.

The push and pull between the governmental branches over the habeas corpus issue, discussed by Ann Ferrera, represents the unbalancing of powers that continues to pervade our federal government as it becomes more polarized and less representative of the people and more representative of powerful and wealthy special interests.

With regard to political protest, Shannah Kurland analyzes the incident that took place at Roger Williams University School of Law and how the incident illustrates that free speech and First Amendment rights require continuous fighting for; otherwise students and others might be stripped of them.

Finally, Matthew Feinberg looks at the current budget cuts and how they hamper state court systems, especially the Massachusetts state court system. Clerkship positions in the Massachusetts state courts have not been available for new law graduates for a number of years now, and with the job market as insubstantial as it has been for the past few years, this does not bode well for future graduates.

Lastly, Lindsay Vick wrties about the 2011 NLG Northeast Regional Conference which took place at Roger Williams last April. It was an inspiring event that will hopefully spur the Massachusetts Chapter of the NLG and local law students into action throughout 2011 and into 2012.

We also have short reports from the 2011 NLG Annual Dinner and from our legal observers at an anti-foreclossure rally in Boston.

- Lindsay Vick & Stephanie Young -

NLG 30th Testimonial Dinner
BREAKING NEWS — Attempted FBI Infiltration of 2011 Testimonial Dinner
By Friedrich Snietzsche

On May 13, 2011, 22:00 hours, NLG Massachusetts staff apprehended a suspicious dinner guest and learned once again—through enhanced interrogation methods (thanks, Dick)—of the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities’ interest in the NLG as a bulwark of the Communist Party. Luckily, NLG staff thwarted the Committee’s plan to infiltrate the Dinner and seized the FBI informant’s notes. Here are the goods:

NLG 2011 Honorees (l.-r.): Karen Blum, Liz Dedrick, Chip Berlet, and Emily Yozell. Dinner Photos by Josh Raisler Cohn

20:15 hours: “Now that Obama joined the Tea Party, And put Osama in the Arabian Sea, The future looks bright with Homeland Security,” NLG troubadours sang, surprising a banquet room of 200 people at the unionized Colonnade Hotel in Boston; all gathered to celebrate the work of Karen Blum and Emily Yozell (Lawyer Award), Chip Berlet (Legal Worker Award), and Liz Dedrick (Student Award). Master of Ceremonies Astrid af Klinteberg and Howard Cooper hosted the evening’s program, complete with live and silent auction and array of speeches. Highlights include: a tribute to Larry Shubow by Martin Kantrovitz (well-known name in our archives) and David Matz, and subsequent call for new Guild cadres due to the aging and dying off of core Guild members, learning of Liz Dedrick’s urban bee-keeping aspirations (obvious code language!), Chip Berlet reminiscing about writing liberal mumbo-jumbo in library corners (admitted secret plotting!), Mike Avery’s inspirational introduction of lawyer awardees incited riot on the dance floor.

NLG Troubadours rehearsing (l.-r.): Laura Alfirng, Urszula Masny-Latos, Stephanie Young, Jonathan Messinger, Sara DeConde, Daniel Werner, Phil Kassel. Photo by Barb Dougan.

20:33 hours: Unusual, repeated theme throughout the night: Do not pick up the phone when one fearless leader “Urszula” calls. Would write more but her file is already too thick.

Conclusion: NLG presents growing threat to grand ol’ American values.

Classy and stylish registration table volunteers (l.-r.): Jesse White, Sara DeConde, Amada Reynolds, and Daniel Werner

Riots on the dance floor after the conclusion of the dinner program.

Frederic Snietzsche is an FBI Informant apprehended by the NLG Staff in women’s bathroom at the Colonnade Hotel after the NLG Annual Dinner.

GUILD NEWS
NLG Happy Hour: The Massachusetts Chapter’s “NLG Presents…” and Happy Hour takes place on the 2nd Wednesday of every month, 5:30-7:30pm, at Kennedy’s Midtown Pub, 44 Province St., 2nd Fl., Boston.  This month’s event will be held on Wednesday, June 8.  Please join us!  (See below.)
Report From Tunisia: On Monday, June 20, 12:30 pm, 14 Beacon St., Conference Rm, 1st Fl., we will host a brown bag lunch discussion with NLG Executive Vice Pressident Azadeh Shahshahani on a recent international delegation to Tunisia and the delegation’s report titled “Hands Off the Tunisian Revolution”.

NLG Presents…
JUDY SOMBERG, JUDITH LIBEN, BEN EVANS
What’s Happening in Cuba?
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
5:30 pm
Kennedy’s Midtown Pub
44 Province St., 2nd Fl., Boston
The speakers will have just returned from an NLG legal research trip to Cuba.  They will give us their impressions of the changes going on after the April 2011 party congress where broad economic changes were enacted and also tell us about gender and environmental law in Cuba.

Street Law Clinic Report
The following clinics and trainings were conducted for members of Boston area community organizations and agencies:
March 19:   Know Your Rights  workshop for activists in the Rhode Island Mobilization Committee, by Ben Evans.
April 8:   Stop &Search clinic for Youth Build participants in Brockton, by BU student Matthew Schultz and Ben Evans.
April 24:   Know Your Rights workshop for Boston BDS Campaign, by Myong Joun.
April 28:   Legal Observering at a forum on Secure Communities in Chelsea, by Carl Williams.
May 4:   Legal Observer training for Northeastern University Law School students, by Melinda Drew.
May 5:   Stop & Search clinic for Youth Build Boston, by student Stephanie Young of Harvard and James Vita of New England, and Makis Antzoulatos.
May 6:   Stop & Search clinic for Boys & Girls Club of Roxbury, by students Jeremiah Meyer-O’Day and Zachary Lown of Northeastern, Stacey Kennard of Harvard, and Myong Joun.
May 9:   Tenants’ Rights clinic at St. Ambrose Family Shelter, by Northeastern student Sharlyn Grace and Jeff Petrucelly.
May 14:   Legal Observering for a rally against Bank of America, by Northeastern NLG students and Melinda Drew, Jeff Feuer, and Lee Goldstein.
June 2:   Know Your Rights training for Grassroots International, by Myong Joun and Urszula Masny-Latos.

Congratulations!
The following NLG members are the recipients of 2011 Excellence in the Law Awards of Mass. Lawyers Weekly:  Kathryn Hayne Barnwell, Camille Marcos, and Ingrid Nava (Up & Coming Lawyer), Karen Blum (Law Professor of the Year), and Andrew Cornell (Mentor of the Year).  Well-deserved!

1. The April “NLG Presents…” featured a spirited discussion of the state of the labor movement and recent attacks on public sector employee bargaining rights in Massachusetts and elsewhere.  Andrei Joseph, a high school teacher and Mass Teachers Association leader, shared an activist’s perspective on the plight of unions and how they can move forward.  Attorneys Shelley Kroll and Ira Sills of Segal, Roitman provided  legal and political context, based on their many years representing unions.   And a spirited assembly of Guild members debated the reasons for union decline and how unions can grow again.

“NLG Presents...” speakers present their fascinating analysis on the current and ongoing attacks on working class, labor organizations and unions (l.-r.): Andrei Joseph, Guild member Shelley Kroll, and Ira Sills.

Participants of the presentation - mostly law students and almost all (except one) women. Photos by Urszula Masny-Latos

2. In May the Guild hosted Modesto Ruiz at a reception prepared by Melinda Drew and Jeff Feuer in their cozy and welcoming Arlington home. Modesto Ruiz is a deputy in Venezuela’s National Assembly and the President of the Subcommittee on Legislation, Participation, Warranties, Duties and Rights of African descendants. Most recently he drafted a national law against racial discrimination and intolerance which was passed in mid May.

Modesto Ruiz (center) and John Willshire-Carrera (l.).

Molly, Melinda & Jeff’s precious poodle, knows something important is going on. Photos by Urszula Masny-Latos

At the reception Mr. Ruiz led a very engaging conversation with a group of NLG members on race relations in Venezuela and on the status of Afro-Venezuelans.

3. To welcome Spring and celebrate NLG students, in March the Guild held its Annual Spring Student and Mentorship Cocktail Event. We gathered at Revolution Bar & Lounge in Boston for an evening of wonderful (free!) appetizers, refreshing – spring-like – beverages, and inspring conversation.

The NLG Mentorship Committee hosts these events twice a year (in Spring and Fall) to introduce NLG law students, attorneys, and legal workers to each other, and to pair students with working legal professionals for mentoring purposes.

At this event, we hosted attorneys whose practice ranged from housing law, criminal defense, juvenile law, public defenders to immigration law. We had students from Harvard, New England, Northeastern, and Suffolk law schools. If you are a lawyer or legal worker and would like to establish a mentoring contact with a Guild law student, please let us know and and we’ll enroll you in the NLG Mentorship Program.

Sitting under a watchful glaze of a deer (l.-r.): Carl Williams, Sara DeConde, Daniel Werner (NESL), Urszula Masny-Latos, Camille Marcos, Laura Alfring, Liza Hirsh (NUSL), Stephanie Young (Harvard), Rebecca Amdemariam (Suffolk), and Jonathan Messinger.

By Ann Ferrera

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President Bush was able to pass the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) with little opposition. The AUMF authorized the President to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against those nations, organizations, or persons he determined planned or aided the terrorist attacks. The AUMF continues to be used indiscriminately to capture and detain Muslim men on scant evidence, many at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As a result of these detentions, and after considerable delay, petitions for writs of Habeas Corpus started working their way through the courts and the government responses followed accordingly. In 2004 the Supreme Court decided the cases of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush.

In Hamdi, the majority concluded that Congress, via the AUMF, gave authority to the executive branch to detain individuals it deemed to be enemy combatants for “the duration of the conflict,” on wildly open-ended mandate considering the nature of the “war.” But in Rasul the Court held that United States courts had jurisdiction to hear petitions under 28 U.S.C. §2241, thus reversing the lower court’s decision dismissing the writ for lack of jurisdiction. The majority opinion found jurisdiction on the basis, inter alia, of the degree of control exercised by the United States over the Guantanamo Bay military base.

Congress responded with the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, providing that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia would have exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of any executive decision to detain as an “enemy combatant.” The Court granted certiorari to Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case in 2006, and held that the Detainee Treatment Act did not strip the courts of habeas in cases commenced before the effective date of the Act.

In response to the Hamdan decision, Congress enacted The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) attempting again to wrestle jurisdiction away from the Court by giving to District of Columbia Circuit exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of detention decisions. Congress also modified the habeas statute by, in essence, denying habeas rights to any non-citizen “determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant.” These statutory efforts constitute a usurpation of the Constitution and an unbalancing of the separation of powers, with the judiciary on one side and Congress and the executive branch on the other.

In 2008, the Court in Boumediene v. Bush, for the first time in history, rejected the combined judgment of the executive and legislative branches with respect to military operations by addressing the practical consideration of who was controlling the location of the detention. In doing so, the Court looked at the functional considerations rather than the geographical location including citizenship and status of the detainee and the adequacy of the process through which the detention determination.

In Boumediene the detainees were not United States Citizens, yet they were contesting their determination as enemy combatants. Importantly the Court found that the detention proceedings fell well short of the procedures and adversarial mechanisms that would eliminate the need for habeas corpus review. And while the Court held that the detainees in Boumediene were apprehended and detained outside of the United States, because the United States exercises exclusive control over Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and so practically “Guantanamo is not abroad.” The Court found as well that the military mission at Guantanamo would not be compromised if habeas corpus courts had jurisdiction to hear detainees’ claims.

The push and pull that has been going on since the start of the war on terror will surely continue. It is imperative that we continue to hold our government accountable for its actions, and support judicial efforts to restrain the Executive Branch.

Ann Marie Ferrara is a 2L at Western New England University School of Law focusing on the constitutionality of the United States’ policies of detention in the War on Terror.

By Shannah Kurland

Universities are frequently the setting for clashes between those fighting for a vision of justice and those committed to maintaining the structure that denies it. But protests at law schools are less common, and even less so when connected to law school public interest events. When protest came to the annual public interest auction held by the Roger Williams University School of Law (RWUSOL), it challenged the illusion of apolitical tranquility that marks so much of public interest law, and it provided a fitting backdrop to the birth of the school’s NLG chapter, the first active chapter in Rhode Island for many years.

The conflict at RWU rolled out after a public announcement that RI Attorney General (and RWUSOL alum) Peter Kilmartin was one of the public officials attending the school’s public interest auction, which raises money for a summer stipend program. Just weeks before, Kilmartin was the target of a protest by over 50 undocumented immigrants and allies who packed his office demanding that he withdraw his plans to enroll Rhode Island in the (in)Secure Communities program. The program, implemented by ICE and voluntarily adopted by city and state law enforcement around the country, forces state and local police departments to turn over fingerprints of arrestees to Department of Homeland Security. While chanting, “Keep your security, we’ll take the homeland!” groups like Olneyville Neighborhood Association, Comité de Inmigrantes en Acción, and DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality), vowed to keep the pressure on.

When the community organizations leading the campaign against (in)Secure Communities learned that Kilmartin would be at the RWUSOL public interest auction, they decided to organize a protest. News of the protest got back to the Association for Public Interest Law (APIL), RWUSOL’s public interest student organization, and the law school administration. The responses from the law school’s public interest office (the event’s institutional sponsor) and a number of students, including APIL members, were revealing. Other than an offer to disinvite Kilmartin, all responses seemed to focus on diverting the community’s protest. “But Kilmartin isn’t a special guest or the focus of the event,” was the response of many. However, the AG was using his hate-filled platform to launch a gubernatorial campaign, and exposure at an event filled with politicos and legal luminaries was beneficial for him. More common was the complaint that the auction “should not be politicized,” that a protest would detract from its goal of raising money for stipends so students can “help” the “indigent” people affected by policies like (in)Secure Communities. Protest organizers rejected that argument, emphasizing that the action was not against the fundraiser, but against Kilmartin’s policies, and that marginalized communities have to determine for themselves when and where to protest.

Lipou Laliemthavisay, a founding member of the RWU NLG Chapter, explains, “Most people, even the most ‘public-interest-minded’ people disagreed with our silent protest because the ‘forum was not right,’ but I do not regret being a part of the fight against a policy that is unjust and inhumane.” She and RWUNLG’s Allyson Quay organized a companion silent protest inside the auction, distributing armbands opposing (in)Secure Communities, an action that a number of students recognized was similar to wearing buttons promoting any other cause. With no financial cushion to fall back on, Laliemthavisay did not receive an auction-funded summer stipend, despite her dedication to APIL and public interest at RWUSOL, but she does not regret her actions. “I hope that the stipend recipients will passionately work in the public’s interest, and not be afraid to be the minority in confronting unjust policies. Even though I did not receive the stipend, I will still continue in the fight because justice cannot wait for a ‘right forum,’ especially when peoples’ lives are on the line.”

Despite the frigid temperatures, 20 people, both documented and undocumented, handed out fliers to attendees explaining Kilmartin’s policies. For an event that so many people touted as apolitical, I was not sure whether to laugh or scream when thank you cards were sent to auction attendees and participants with a big smiling picture of – you guessed it – Peter Kilmartin.

Shannah Kuland is a rising 2L at RWU and one of the founding members of its NLG Chapter.  She has worked for the past 20 years with the groups that organized the protest at the auction, and plans to continue supporting their work while in law school and beyond.r

By Matthew Feinberg

As global economies continue to suffer from the financial meltdown, our local municipalities have been forced to make tough budget cuts. The economic downturn hurts everyone and can erode substantive due process safeguards. The cuts in local budgets are forcing jurisdictions to significantly decrease budget allocations for their judiciary and court-related services. Eventually, these cuts will adversely affect the general public as jobs will be unavailable, people will be unable to seek relief from the courts, and the constitutional rights of the public stand to suffer, especially for those with limited financial resources. The demand for organizations that further such public interest, like the National Lawyers Guild, will sharply rise.

Judicial budget cuts are occurring all over our country. The New York Office of Court Administration plans to cut approximately $170 million, which would be a reduction of approximately 6.3 percent of the State Court’s current budget. New York has tried to avoid layoffs and has ordered the Courts to terminate proceedings at 4:30 p.m. in an attempt to save jobs by cutting excessive overtime expenses. Time restrictions aside, heavy job loss is expected in the New York State Court system and litigants, lawyers, and support staff will all suffer the loss.

Similarly, Florida is facing a crisis and the judicial branch was forced to take an odd course of action when the Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice sought financing to fill the gap. According to the Florida Supreme Courts Information Office, the Florida Governor and the Chief Justice reached an agreement to provide the judicial branch with a loan that will fill a budget gap that otherwise would have required furloughs and curtailing court services through the end of May. The remaining June shortfall is covered by an additional stipend that was not part of the Chief Justice’s original request. One would think that this incredible scenario could never happen in our country, yet economic depression nearly caused Florida to close their courts.

The Massachusetts Judiciary has also been negatively affected by the economic downturn. In a statement from the Chief Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Massachusetts Superior Court, a Massachusetts House SubCommittee “recommended $25.4 million in additional cuts to the Trial Court budget. That budget, which was issued in April, recommends Trial Court funding of $518.7 million, significantly below last fiscal year’s appropriation of $544.1 million… A reduction of more than $25 million requires greater management flexibility than ever. The Massachusetts Judiciary has already cut jobs, and the Chief Justices responded to the budget cut stating that the outlook is poor “[w]ith 1,007 fewer employees than in July 2008, we know that our dedicated court staff is stretched beyond capacity in many locations. Already, 76 of 116 court divisions are staffed below 85 percent of the staffing level prescribed by the staffing model and 28 divisions are below 70 percent. As a result of staff shortages, our backlog of cases pending beyond time standards has climbed by 23,000 over the past three years.”

Despite the constitutional disasters on the horizon, hope lies within legal education and public advocacy. Jobs in the legal field are scarce, yet the volumes of court cases show no indication of slowing. Even with a conservative assumption that the rate of court business remains constant, the current budget numbers indicate a future backlog of justice. When people are denied justice they will need law students, lawyers, and the NLG to help inform them of their rights. If people cannot get their day in court because of a fiscal crisis, the public will need to become more aware of their rights, and then they can avoid the need to seek judicial intervention. If law students, working with the NLG, can educate the public about their rights, it will help society access information that the courts are too busy to provide.

Fortunately, the newly formed University of Massachusetts School of Law- Dartmouth was founded on the principles of public interest law. As the first public law school in Massachusetts, it offers students a high quality legal education for far less tuition than that of private law schools in the Commonwealth. In conjunction with the NLG and other local law schools, UMASS Law will help ease the ramifications of budget cuts by informing the public about their rights. UMASS Law is proud to establish an NLG chapter and looks forward to working with other educational institutions to serve society.

Matthew Feinberg, JD Candidate 2012, is a student at the University of Massachusetts School of Law from which he was awarded an honorary public interest law stipend.”

By Lindsay Vick

Massachusetts members in session at the Regional Convention.

The Roger Williams University School of Law student chapter of the NLG (RWUNLG) started off strong during the 2011 spring semester hosting a number of events, including the 2011 NLG Northeast Regional Conference held April 1-3. The conference takes place in the Northeast region every couple of years and is hosted by a regional law school. This year, the Region recognized the emergent energy and activism of the RWUNLG student chapter and chose RWU as this year’s host. The theme for the conference focused on deconstructing misconceptions surrounding the concept of activist lawyering; thus, the conference was aptly titled, “Ready, Represent, Radicalize! Demystifying the Dominant Ideology for Activists.” Over 50 people were in attendance, including law students from RWU, Western New England College, Vermont, and Harvard. Also in attendance were attorneys and practitioners from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut.

The Conference kicked off with a welcome reception at Redlefsen’s in Bristol, RI, where we enjoyed delicious hors d’oeuvres and the opportunity to socialize with other likeminded activists. Not content with ending the night at 9 p.m., the conference attendees continued the evening at Wood Street Café, and contributed to a karaoke event which was raising proceeds to benefit Rhode Island Legal Services.

Consistent with the theme of deconstructing misconceptions surrounding activist lawyers, topics for the conference included: juvenile immigration, workers’ compensation and immigration, drug prohibition, revolutions in the Middle East, domestic terrorism, land reform in Venezuela, labor unions and workers’ rights, and the anti-war movement. The weekend culminated with a keynote address from Lizzy Ratner and Philip Weiss, who are co-editors of The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict. This presentation concerning recent revolutions in the Middle East and their impact on Palestine engaged the audience and stimulated further discussions about international law, political will, and social justice.

The conference concluded with a brunch on Sunday morning where the attendees convened to reflect on their experience over the weekend. The general sentiment about the conference was very positive, and many attendees commented that they gained a deeper understanding of legal and social justice issues. Despite having little time to plan the conference and being a new student NLG chapter, the RWUNLG pulled off an immense achievement during its first active semester.

Jump-starting the RWUNLG

One weekend in October of 2010, several members of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Guild joined law students at RWU for a discussion about the Guild and how to start a Guild student chapter. Student attendance at this discussion was substantial given that it was a beautiful, fall Saturday afternoon. After that day, a group of seven students decided to found the first NLG student chapter at RWU. The structure of the RWUNLG board is unique in that it is non-hierarchal with each member acting equally as an Executive Councilmember.

During the 2010-2011 school year our chapter hosted a number of events, including a panel discussion about immigration with Aviva Chomsky, a discussion on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act with Odette Wilkens, and, of course, the 2011 NLG Regional Conference. Hopefully, the momentum with the new chapter will continue and student interest will remain strong. Also, we plan to partner with other local law schools, such as the new UMass School of Law, to assist local communities in southern Massa-chusetts and in Rhode Island.

Lindsay Vick is a 2L student at Roger Williams University School of Law and co-founder of the RWUNLG student chapter.

Some 350 – 400 citizens gathered in Copley Square in Boston on Saturday, May 14, 2011, to demonstrate against the policies of the Bank of America and other large investor banks who have refused to modify the mortgages of homeowners facing foreclosure, despite the banks themselves receiving federal bailout funds. The growing Bank Tenant movement showed its strength as delegations at the rally included City Life’s Bank Tenant Assoc., City Life’s Northside Bank Tenant Assoc., Chelsea Collaborative, Lynn United for Change, Merrimack Valley Project, Springfield’s No One Leaves, Worcester Anti-Foreclosure Team, and Provi-dence’s Direct Action for Rights and Equality, as well as local union representatives. NLG Northeastern Law School students and Guild lawyers Melinda Drew, Lee Goldstein, and Jeff Feuer served as NLG Legal Observers for the lively and peaceful protest.

Northeastern Guild law students (l.-r.) Jeremiah Meyer-O’Day, Randy Choiniere, and Sharlyn Grace proudly serve as legal observers at the rally. Photo by Raymond Austin

As each city’s delegation arrived at the scene, they marched behind their banner to join the loudly cheering crowd while chanting. At about 11 a.m., a delegation of 10 demonstrators marched across Boylston Street to present a demand to the Bank of America branch manager, declaring the Bank to be “guilty” and “sentencing” it to reducing principals on defaulting mortgages and stopping post-foreclosure evictions. When prevented from entering the bank, protesters already inside the bank started chanting and singing. When they were ushered out by the police, chants and cries of “guilty, guilty” grew even stronger.

Speakers at the rally focused on the issue of principal reduction. Speaker after speaker described their unsuccessful efforts to get loan modifications from the Bank of America and other large banks, despite the fact that their loans are “underwater” (property value much less than loan value). One speaker had gotten a permanent loan modification from Bank of America, but the bank attached a balloon payment of over $400,000 at the end of the loan, making it impossible to pay off. Another speaker described the fraudulent activity that led up to her foreclosure, followed by an eviction in September, 2008 (where City Life members were arrested); Bank of America later sold her property for 60% of loan value, a price she easily could have afforded. Many speakers noted that banks could avoid the costs of foreclosure and get a share of equity appreciation by doing a loan modification with principal reduction. Nevertheless, the same Wall St. banks that ran the economy into the ground, got bailed out, pay huge CEO salaries, and don’t pay federal taxes have refused to do so and instead are destroying property values by foreclosing and evicting homeowners and tenants.

Other speakers at the rally included Rich Rogers, Executive Secretary of the Greater Boston Labor Council and Boston City Councilor Felix Arroyo, who is proposing that continuing no fault evictions be a factor in whether the city puts money into a given bank. Also visiting the rally was a giant puppet representing Bank of America with a briefcase full of cash.

- Jeff Feuer -
NLG Board Member and law partner at Goldstein & Feuer Law Office in Cambridge.