Legal Aid Bureau

After a small fire on the second floor of her Eastport Terrace home last summer, Devera Pounds was told by the Annapolis Housing Authority to remove her window air conditioner and deep freezer. She did so without question but now wonders why. Pounds is preparing to file a grievance against the authority. And she's not alone. "As soon as you buy something to make you comfortable, they take it," said Pounds, who has lived at the public housing development with her two sons and two grandsons for almost three years.

The cooperative center created by nonprofit organizations to reach residents in the southeast area of Howard County has a new name: North Laurel-Savage Multiservice Center. The center, in the Whiskey Bottom Shopping Center, offers help with housing, food, fuel and utilities and crisis intervention for those in need. Representatives of the Department of Social Services help residents apply for food stamps, cash assistance and medical assistance. The department joins the Community Action Council, Domestic Violence Center, Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland, FIRN, Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center and the Legal Aid Bureau in offering services at the center at 9105 All Saints Road.

After a small fire on the second floor of her Eastport Terrace home last summer, Devera Pounds was told by the Annapolis Housing Authority to remove her window air conditioner and deep freezer. She did so without question but now wonders why. Pounds is preparing to file a grievance against the authority. And she's not alone. "As soon as you buy something to make you comfortable, they take it," said Pounds, who has lived at the public housing development with her two sons and two grandsons for almost three years.

Pat Preisinger walked into Howard County Circuit Courthouse last month not knowing what to expect. She was looking for advice from a lawyer. For the past three years, she has been separated from her husband and wants to file for divorce, but she doesn't have the money for legal fees. The session at the courthouse was free for the 55-year-old Ellicott City resident. She met with Ria Rochvarg, an attorney with Maryland Volunteer Lawyer Services (MVLS), to talk about her case. Since September, the nonprofit organization has offered free legal assistance with family law cases at the county courthouse.

A loud, clear voice breaks the quiet in Courtroom 2. Lawyer Janet LaBella, longtime advocate for Anne Arundel County's poor, lobs her first legal volley of the afternoon. As it turns out, there's plenty more where that came from. Short and intense, with piercing dark eyes, LaBella goes to work. This time she's defending a public housing resident who faces eviction for missing four rent payments in a year, a violation of the Annapolis Housing Authority's "four strikes and you're out" policy.

Quincy Ann Thornton, 57, Legal Aid employee Quincy Ann Thornton, a retired paralegal for Baltimore's Legal Aid Bureau, died Wednesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital of heart failure. She was 57 and lived in Northeast Baltimore. Born in Baltimore, Mrs. Thornton graduated from Carver High School and trained as a paralegal. She worked for 24 years with the Legal Aid Bureau Inc. in Baltimore, handling many public housing cases. She retired in 1995 after becoming ill. She enjoyed playing softball and umpiring games for the city Bureau of Recreation.

Registration is open for winter classes sponsored by the South Laurel Recreation Council for children, teens and adults. Classes, which are held at Montpelier, James Harrison and Oaklands elementary schools and Montpelier Carriage House, begin Jan. 16 and thereafter. Yoga, tai chi and Pilates are offered, as are ballroom dance, salsa, Latin dance, Latin line dance and country line dance classes. Also offered are scrapbooking, self-defense, stamping, tea basics, chess, exploring cryptograms and codes, knitting and floral design.

Eliot Wagonheim has heard all the lawyer jokes. He knows the shark metaphors. He can imagine how the term "billable hours" sounds to the public. But Wagonheim thinks he can kill these perceptions with kindness. A lawyer himself, Wagonheim is tapping into the Baltimore County legal community's need for service by asking county lawyers to donate $2 or 2 percent for each billable hour on Thursdays in March. The money will go to the Legal Aid Bureau, which represents indigent clients in civil cases, the Baltimore County Bar Association and the new Baltimore County Firefighters Victims and Members Assistance Fund.

Representatives from the Department of Social Services will be available from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays, starting Jan. 3, at the Multiservice Center in North Laurel to help residents in need apply for food stamps, cash assistance and medical assistance. The department joins the Community Action Council, Domestic Violence Center, Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland, FIRN, Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center and the Legal Aid Bureau in offering services at the center in the Whiskey Bottom Shopping Center, 9105 All Saints Road.

In late July, a woman living at an Annapolis shelter missed a meeting when she went out to buy milk for her infant daughter. The shelter told her to leave. Then, when she sought legal recourse, it closed.The woman's plight has led to a bitter dispute between the Lutheran Mission Society of Maryland and the Legal Aid Bureau Inc., two statewide, non-profit organizations that help the poor.Worried that she would end up on the street after being told to leave, the woman turned to the Legal Aid Bureau in Annapolis to avoid being evicted.