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Widener Law Commonwealth’s Civil Law Clinics have been assisting Dauphin County residents and providing students with experience for more than two decades.

By Sam Starnes

Faye Youmans didn’t know where to turn.

She wanted to file the legal paperwork to win custody of her 13-year-old grandson from a troubled daughter, but the attorneys she called were too expensive. “One attorney wanted $1,000 up front just for paperwork, and then $95 an hour,” said Youmans, a Halifax, Pennsylvania, resident who works in bill collection. “I couldn’t afford that.”

She worried about her grandson who had come to live with her being forced to return to a threatening environment of drug abuse he’d survived while living with his mother. “He came to me in 2013,” Youmans said of an arrangement that initially was supposed to be only a few weeks. “He didn’t want to go back home. He told us about things that would make you cry.”

Without custody, she could not get health insurance for him, enroll him in school, and tend to other matters that required a legal guardian.

She also worried about her daughter coming to reclaim her son and insisting on taking him back into a perilous environ­ment against his will. At one point Youmans considered taking her grandson and hiding him from her daughter. “I wanted to protect my grandson any way I could,” she said.

Instead of running away, however, she found the Central Pennsylvania Law Clinics, staffed by Harrisburg law students and faculty. Two students and a supervising attorney handled her case pro bono, helping her win full custody of her grandson. “They were a godsend,” she said. “They have no idea what they did for us.”

More than Two Decades of Service

The Central Pennsylvania Civil Law Clinics, founded in 1991 by J. Palmer Lockard, an associate clinical professor who continues to direct the program, until recently were known collectively as the Harrisburg Civil Law Clinic. The clinics now consist of the Administrative Law Clinic, the Consumer Law Clinic, the Elder Law Clinic, and the Family Justice Clinic. The clinics serve two main purposes: providing free legal services to residents of Dauphin County in need of representation in civil cases and giving law students hands-on training and experience.

Alexis Miloszewski, a 2008 graduate of Widener Law Harrisburg, said her experience as a student working in the clinic helped her to choose a career in family law. “I was exposed to various areas of law, and I had an opportunity to get a sense of what I enjoyed,” said Miloszewski, now a family law attorney for JSDC Law Offices in Hummelstown, near Hershey.

She said her practical experience in the clinic gave her confidence when she began her career. “When I started in a small firm, it was sink or swim,” Miloszewski said. “I already had experience handling cases at the clinic. It relieved my anxiety. That experience was invaluable.”

Miloszewski said she also found the mission of helping those who could not afford legal services very rewarding. She said she often refers prospective clients who can’t afford legal fees to the clinics. “I know that they will be well represented,” she said.

Court of Common Pleas Judge Jeannine Turgeon, managing judge for Dauphin County’s Family Law Court, said that about 80 percent of custody cases in her court involve people who don’t have legal representation. The clinics, she said, help to offset this high number of unrepresented litigants. “They provide a great service,” said Turgeon, who also teaches at Widener Law Commonwealth as an adjunct faculty member. “Their work is very important. It’s certainly essential for us to meet the needs of those who can’t afford attorneys.”

Grandparent Custody Cases

The Dauphin County Area Agency on Aging and MidPenn Legal Services often refers those in need of legal services to the clinics. In the past year, the clinics have handled five cases involving grandparents seeking full custody of grandchildren. “The need is there to help indigent clients with as many custody cases as we can,” said Mary Catherine Scott, a supervising attorney for the clinics who also teaches as an adjunct faculty member. “Grandparent cases are a rarity, but very rewarding to students when we can assist them.”

Two law students who graduated in May 2015—Johelys Cecala of Frederick, Maryland, and Kosta Patsiopoulos of Harrisburg—helped Youmans file her request for custody and present it in the Dauphin County Family Law Court.

The case began with Cecala, who met with Youmans in the fall 2014 semester and began preparing her paperwork. “She really wanted to do this for her grandson,” Cecala said. “She wanted to give him a better life.”

She worked with Youmans until the case carried over to the spring semester, where it was picked up by Patsiopoulos. “It was my first case,” Patsiopoulos said. “I realized how important this was—this is dealing with a young child that has been brought up in unimaginable circumstances.”

He read through the inch-thick file, met with Youmans, and then successfully presented Youman’s request for custody before a judge. “It was an eye-opening experience,” he said. “You can read so much about a case, but you see the human emotion in person.”

Youmans was thrilled with the full custody result Patsiopoulos and Cecala achieved for her and her grandson in March. Her grandson now lives with her without fear of having to leave. He is enrolled in middle school and enjoys playing soccer, going fishing, and working on cars with his uncle, especially a 1995 Chevy S-10 pickup that they have been restoring. He also plays with his younger cousins who live next door to him and his grandmother.

Youmans shudders at what might have happened to him had she not found the clinics. “If I had to pay a regular lawyer, I could not have done it,” she said.