Lindsey Edinger ’13 is working with the Legal Aid Society for Mid New York.
Lindsey Edinger ’13 is working with the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, Inc. on the Consumer Bankrutpcy Law Project, which is a partnership between Legal Aid and the Upstate Institute. Lindsey is completing the bankruptcy filing process for qualified low income individuals in order to refer their cases out to pro bono attorneys. She is working with project attorney Susan Conn to launch a website that models the project to Bar Associations and university campuses.
Over the summer, she will be completing several new cases, and preparing others for Colgate student volunteers to complete in the fall. She is also creating a clear model of the schedules and memorandums for which the students can refer or model their work on as they begin their cases.
The experience is giving her an opportunity to better understand the branches of civil law and legal procedure. She is learning how to interpret legal language and compose legal documents, and while she is considering law school in the future, she recognizes that these skills are important for anyone entering the world of contracts and leases in general. She is also learning the complexity of navigating the legal system for low-income clients, “This project should instill me with a clearer and more nuanced understanding of public benefit programs and their social impact,” she says.