Foreclosure Prevention Clinic Celebrates Four Year Anniversary

(l-r) Clinic intern Loretta Martina, Paralegal Program Manager Deb Boyle, and clinic intern Laura Main.

Dec. 18, 2012, will mark the four-year anniversary of the Foreclosure Prevention Clinics, which were started by the Paralegal Studies Program along with the Connecticut Fair Housing Center.

Trained volunteer attorneys, working paralegals and University of Hartford paralegal students and alumni have staffed the monthly clinics.  University of Hartford Bachelor students Loretta Martina and Laura Main have interned as coordinators for the clinic over the years. Martina was subsequently hired by Connecticut Fair Housing as its first paralegal. Martina and Main also received the University of Hartford Student Leadership Award in 2011 for their outstanding leadership work at the clinics.

The Foreclosure Prevention Clinics provide an opportunity for homeowners facing foreclosure to obtain information about the judicial foreclosure and mediation process in a friendly and nonjudgmental environment through presentations and breakout sessions with the volunteers.  These homeowners, who in most cases cannot afford an attorney, then go on to represent themselves in the legal process.

More than 500 homeowners have attended and been assisted at the clinics thus far, and the program will continue into 2013! 

The clinic has been a tremendous success in the Greater Hartford community and has become a statewide model for other clinics in the State of Connecticut as well as a national model. The clinic is referenced as a legal source in the State of Connecticut Superior Court Judicial Branch form CV-126 “Foreclosure Mediation Notice of Community-based Resources.”  In 2010 at the Connecticut Fair Housing Center’s annual awards dinner, the University of Hartford Paralegal Program was recognized for its “commitment to assisting those in need and for believing that every distressed homeowner has the right to be treated with respect and dignity.”

To see photos from the clinics and to read student perspectives about working at the clinics, please visit the Paralegal Studies website and click "Testimonials" and "Photo Gallery." For more information about volunteering to help at the clinics, contact paralegal student intern Laura Main at main@hartford.edu.

Foreclosure Prevention Clinics are held every third Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the University High School of Science and Engineering. For more information please contact Deb Boyle, program manager, Paralegal Studies Program, at DBoyle@hartford.edu.