Adventures in Anacostia

Yesterday instead of coming into my normal office, I went with an attorney to another location of our office in the SE (poorer) area of the city. I went because our NW location where I usually am is not taking any new clients this week. Thus traffic has been heavier in the SE and they needed some extra help making things work smoothly. My duties were to conduct the first part of the interviews with potential clients. If you remember, last week I sat in on some of these interviews so I had a handle on how they went. I took all the information down for people, collected their documents and got a handle on their legal problems before sending them into an attorney. Essentially I was the nurse before the doctor comes in. I am amazed at how much I understand now, compared to when I first came.

One problem was that I kept getting pushed out of rooms. Legal Aid just uses whatever rooms are available at the suite we rent space from in the Southeast. Twice I had to do interviews in the tiny computer control room which was about 85 degrees and where one person had to get out of the room before the other one could get up. I also made a new friend who "works" there and has come kind of cognitive disabilities but is very friendly and personally escorted me everywhere and took care of everything I need. He, and another kid-probably 13, seemed to take a shining to me. I'm not sure what that conveys...