Overview

The SLS Social Security Disability Project (SSDP), the Law School’s only in-house pro bono project, gives students the opportunity to work directly with local homeless clients.

Meeting a local need

The Law School established SSDP in 2007 to respond to an urgent need in the local community. Palo Alto’s newly established homeless center, the Opportunity Center for the Midpeninsula, had begun to swell with individuals who were facing hearings regarding claims for Social Security disability benefits and were in need of representation.

SSDP has a big impact on this community. During the 2008-09 academic year, 28 law students volunteered with SSDP. They successfully represented numerous clients at proceedings before Administrative Law Judges, obtained disability benefits for several others, and successfully resolved other kinds of payment disputes for still more.

All first-year SSDP volunteers will have the opportunity to participate in a hearing during their 2L year. In preparation for those hearings, SSDP students work closely with professionals at the Opportunity Center in the community – including physicians, psychiatrists, and social workers to develop medical evidence of disability.

Executive Board

SSDP has and eight person Executive Board made up of second and third-year law students. Board members take on leadership roles, helping to guide the development of the project and creating training and community education materials. Students who participate in the project during the 2009-10 school year may apply for Board positions in Spring 2010.

News & Press

News

• An Energetic Advocate For Disabled Law Students
  October 11, 2010 The National Law Journal
  Related: (None), Social Security Disability Pro Bono Project

Clinic Contacts

Lisa Douglass

Director of the SLS Social Security Disability Project

ldouglass@law.stanford.edu

650 736.0773

Lisa Douglass began her career serving as a public defender in Seattle for four years, initially representing juveniles in criminal proceedings and later, adults in felony cases.

As a public defender, Lisa was known for her compassionate and zealous advocacy on behalf of her clients and her success in obtaining drastically reduced se4ntences for her mentally-ill clients. She partnered with a social worker to develop community-based treatment plans that judges could choose as alternatives to incarceration. She later left the public defender’s office to join a plaintiff’s/public interest law firm and represented indigent clients in Social Security Disability hearings and appeals, ensuring that basic needs such as living stipends and medical benefits could be covered for the rest of her client’s lives.