| 
As political and financial leaders take extraordinary steps to revitalize the economy, the majority of the 2008 graduates from Texas' law schools are in the first few months of their professional lives as attorneys. A credit crisis, a volatile stock market and unpredictable global economy form the business backdrop for these grads.
Texas Lawyer is following the careers of five who represent a handful of the diverse job choices available to them. Josh Adam Fogelman, Alexis Hoff, Ronn Paiz Garcia, Juliet M. McBride and Paul Sebastian Di Blasi graduated from Texas law schools in May. One sat for and passed the February Texas bar exam, while the other four passed the July exam. Their pay ranges from $20 an hour to an annual base salary of $160,000.
Texas Lawyer will check in with each of these attorneys annually for the next several years and share their career stories.
Texas Supreme Court Law Clerk
|
Josh A. Fogelman |
| Law school debt: more than $100,000 Job: clerk, Texas Supreme Court City: Austin Salary: $43,000 Car: 2000 BMW 323 Cic |
When he was just 11 years old, Josh Adam Fogelman, now a law clerk with the Texas Supreme Court in Austin, starred in a courtroom drama. Playing the role of the prosecutor in a mock criminal trial at Austin's Doss Elementary School, Fogelman says he made the student playing the defendant cry.
"Cross-examination is a beautiful thing," Fogelman says, "because it allows you to go for the jugular in a very, very, civilized way." He recalls standing at the front of the public school classroom, where his classmates were seated in small, individual desks. "Hands were flailing, words were flying, tears were falling," he says. "I thought, maybe I have a career in this."
That idea strengthened while he was an undergraduate at the University of Texas, pursuing a bachelor's degree in communication studies. Fogelman worked as a runner for the now defunct Austin firm Morris & Florey.
"I had an opportunity to meet so many people: judges, clerks and local attorneys," he says. "I began to like the legal community a lot."
Jason R. Nassour was one of the lawyers Fogelman worked with at Morris & Florey and is now a partner in Keel & Nassour in Austin.
"Josh has a phenomenal personality," Nassour says. "People just like Josh."
While Fogelman was in law school, Nassour says, he would occasionally ask him to work on special projects or would ask for his suggestions or ideas on how to present a client's case to a jury.
"This kid is as sharp as they come," Nassour says. "I think the best litigator is the one that has the ability to tell a story and have it be believed. In my opinion, the side with the greatest chance is the one whose lawyer is liked the most and tells the best story, the facts. I think he has a natural knack for doing just that."
Fogelman says that Nassour, a Baylor University School of Law graduate, inspired him to apply to Baylor.
"Baylor lawyers have the reputation of just being bulldogs in the courtroom," Fogelman says. "That's never a bad reputation to have."
He sat for and passed the February Texas bar exam and graduated from Baylor law school in May.
Now Fogelman is working as a law clerk for Texas Supreme Court Justice Harriet O'Neill. The position pays an annual salary of $43,000, and Fogelman began working Aug. 19. During the summer of 2007, before beginning his third year at Baylor Law School, Fogelman earned five hours of course credit working an eight-week internship for O'Neill.
"He was an intern here, and he just did a super job," O'Neill says. As a result, she offered him a one-year position as a law clerk. She describes the job as one that "involves a lot of heavy research."
Law clerks will do an in-depth analysis and draw up an opinion on cases the court is considering, she says. O'Neill says she allows her law clerks a lot of diverse experience.
O'Neill has two law clerks: Fogelman and Jennifer Ferri, a 2008 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.
"I will sit down with the clerks, and I will prepare a memo on how the case should be decided and how it should be written," she says. "They will go do a draft, and I will work with them on the draft. We have a very hands-on chambers where we all heavily edit and are involved in the opinions."
The law clerks are also allowed to sit it on conference, when the justices are reviewing and deliberating cases, opinions and petitions, she says.
"It's a tremendous learning tool," O'Neill says. "They hear all of the judges express opinions on cases. When clerks leave, they always say that was one of the highlights, watching the court deliberate."
Fogelman agrees. "It's interesting to take in the discussion and see how your writing struck them," he says. "It's great direct feedback." He adds that the justices occasionally ask the law clerks for more information. "Sometimes, if there is an issue they recognize that you have not fully addressed or they are more curious about, they will ask you in conference," he says. "They let you know what is on their mind."
The law clerks also prepare study memos for the court that recommend whether the court should grant petitions for review, says Elizabeth V. "Ginger" Rodd, staff attorney for O'Neill. The clerks review the case arguments and make a recommendation about whether the court should hear the case. "It's a whole lot of writing and analysis," she says. Except for an occasionally busy week, the law clerks generally work from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Rodd says.
Fogelman was busy during the few months following law school graduation and before beginning his job with the court. He helped his then-fiancée emigrate from Germany, moved from Waco to Austin, set up an Austin household, and married Stephanie Kebschull. He met her while in Germany one summer when he was traveling with his brother.
The June wedding was a small, civil ceremony performed by Travis County Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland on a riverboat on Austin's Lady Bird Lake. "It was a really small, intimate wedding," Fogelman says. "It was wonderful."
The newlyweds are living in a two-bedroom apartment west of downtown Austin. Fogelman would like to buy a house in Austin, but with law school debt exceeding $100,000, he says that purchase may not be feasible for a while. Meanwhile, he says he'll continue to rely on his 2000 BMW convertible for transportation.
Fogelman and Nassour say they have discussed the possibility of Fogleman joining Austin's Keel & Nassour after he completes his year with the court. In addition to litigation, Fogelman says, he has developed an interest in immigration law based on his experience obtaining a visa for his wife.
"There are so many hoops to jump through that it really turned me on to what foreigners, certainly non-native English speakers, must go through when they try to immigrate," he says. In May, Kebschull obtained a K-1 visa, giving her permission to enter the United States for the purpose of getting married, he says. In September, she received a work authorization and has also applied for a green card, which will give her the status of a lawful, permanent resident, he says.
A year from now, Nassour hopes to have succeeded in recruiting Fogelman to join his firm. He says Fogelman already has a wealth of knowledge and strong verbal skills.
"I think the time clerking with the court will enable him to better articulate in writing what he wants to say," Nassour says. "We would love to have him here. I'm going to steal him."
Assistant Attorney in Fort Worth
| Alexis Hoff Texas Wesleyan University School of Law |
| Law school debt: $85,000 Job: assistant attorney, Evans, Daniel, Moore & Evans City: Fort Worth Salary: $20 an hour Car: 2007 Mazda 3 |
Alexis Hoff is an assistant attorney for a small group of criminal-defense attorneys in Fort Worth. A May 2008 graduate of Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, Hoff learned she had passed the July Texas bar exam when the Texas Board of Law Examiners released the test results on Nov. 6, Hoff's fourth day on the job. "What a relief," she says.
Hoff had spent September and October working as a licensed private investigator with Fort Worth's Walton Investigations, finding witnesses and conducting interviews for potential civil cases. "That was a lot of fun," she says.
But working with the criminal-defense attorneys -- Tim Evans, Mark G. Daniel, Tim Moore and Lance Evans -- is a dream come true for a young attorney interested in criminal law, she says. With the job, passing the bar exam became a big concern for Hoff. "That's when I became really, really nervous about the bar results," she says. "I didn't want to not pass the bar."
 |
| Alexis Hoff, assistant attorney, Evans, Daniel, Moore & Evans |
The four attorneys she works with at Evans, Daniel, Moore & Evans share office space and expenses, but each maintains a separate practice, she says. She works on a contract, hourly basis based on the attorneys' needs, earning $20 per hour.
At this point, Hoff says, she wants to eventually establish her own criminal-defense firm. "This [job] is good for new attorneys like me," she says. "I am working with great attorneys while getting my feet wet in the field."
Hoff will be learning to do criminal-defense work, says Mark G. Daniel. "She will be assisting in trial preparation, from the standpoint of possibly interviewing witnesses, background research if necessary with cases and assisting us with jury selection in various cases," he says. "She'll be helping prepare criminal cases in a trial setting."
Daniel says the position is a transitional one for an attorney who has just graduated from law school. "We are not seeking associates," he says. The job "is a saturation of criminal law practice that cannot be duplicated anywhere else," Daniel says. "This is not meant to be a long-term situation, but a launching position."
Hoff says she imagines herself with the group for six months to a year.
"Where I go from here I don't know," she says. "Ultimately, I still want to have my own business. I don't know when I will be able to do that financially. I don't know yet."
Hoff is living in a Fort Worth house, owned by her mother, Anita Hoff. In lieu of rent, Hoff says that she and her fiancé, Toby Allen, are remodeling the kitchen and bathroom. She estimates her law school debt at about $85,000, and she intends to drive her 2007 Mazda 3 for the next several years. She and Allen plan to marry in October 2010.
Hoff decided to become a lawyer while she was in her junior year at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she earned a bachelor's degree in history. She had rented a house in Fort Worth, and the heating system failed during the middle of the winter. Hoff says the landlord not only refused to repair the heating system but also filed an eviction notice requiring that she move by a particular date. Hoff says she prepared for the eviction hearing before a Tarrant County justice of the peace by researching Texas' landlord-tenant law. She says she also paid a $5 fee to have a six-person jury hear her case. Hoff does not recall the name of the JP but says she was about 20 years old when she presented her case, successfully demonstrating that her rent payments were current. "The landlord was not happy," she recalls. "He underestimated me."
Hoff says she didn't continue to live in the rental house; she just wanted to prove she was right. Prior to the eviction hearing, Hoff had planned on becoming a teacher. "But I felt I needed more of a challenge," she says. "I thought maybe I should try law school."
Hoff spent the summer after her first year of law school in Ruidoso, N.M., with her father, Richard Hoff, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January 2006. During May, June and the beginning of July, Hoff says she worked part time as a clerk in the law office of Charles Hawthorne, a Ruidoso solo practitioner. Her father died July 11, 2006.
"I remember I worked until the week before he passed away," she says. "He got really sick, and he stayed home the last week."
Hoff says her father elected to not have radiation or chemotherapy treatments. She was initially frustrated by his decision but says she came to realize that he wanted to be able to cherish every moment of the last few months of his life.
"Every minute you have in your life is important," she says. "My dad always lived that way. You should do what's important in your life and really evaluate what matters and what does not."
During her third year of law school, while most of her classmates were firming up job offers, Hoff focused on helping exonerate a man who had been wrongfully imprisoned for almost three decades. Hoff had worked for the Innocence Project of Texas (IPOT) during the summer following her second year of law school. She continued to work for the IPOT, during her final year of school, volunteering about 20 hours per week reviewing DNA cases.
Her job search "was not worth wasting all that time and energy worrying about when I could be doing better things like the Innocence Project," she says. Hoff knew she eventually wanted to open her own criminal defense firm but first wanted to work with the district attorney's office in Dallas or Fort Worth. But she knew that neither considered applicants who had not yet passed the bar exam. So she decided to prepare for the July exam and accepted a temporary position as a private investigator with Walton Investigations in Fort Worth investigating cases of wrongful conviction.
Michelle Moore, executive director of the IPOT, says that Hoff showed great determination when working on cases where newly available DNA evidence indicated that a person had been wrongfully incarcerated. "She did a really good job, especially on the James Woodard case," Moore says. James Lee Woodard was exonerated in January after spending 27 years in prison for rape and murder, Moore says. While the DNA test indicated that Woodard had not been the rapist, it did not exonerate him for the murder, Moore says, so the IPOT, including work by Hoff, worked on clearing him of that charge, which it did. He is now free.
"There were some alibi witnesses, some people who pointed a finger at him," Moore says. "We had such trust in her and her ability. She was able to go out and find witnesses. She was really determined that she was going to make this [exoneration] happen," she says.
Moore says that Hoff is smart, organized and "has extremely good people skills and so is able to get witnesses to talk to her."
She also says that Moore has a good, intuitive sense about cases. "Alexis is one of those people who is able to evaluate a case, both the good and the bad, and then decide where to go from there," Moore says. "She is very good at being able to map out a case. And being so young and able to do that is pretty amazing."
First-Year Associate in West Texas
| Ronn Paiz Garcia Texas Tech University School of Law |
| Law school debt: about $50,000 Job: associate, Underwood, Wilson, Berry, Stein & Johnson City: Lubbock Salary: about $80,000 Car: 2001 Ford Explorer |
Ronn Paiz Garcia, a first-year associate with the Lubbock office of Underwood, Wilson, Berry, Stein & Johnson, makes special note of Aug. 25. "It was a big day," Garcia says. "It was my son's first day at kindergarten and my first day as a lawyer."
Garcia was born in Lubbock and is a May 2008 graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law. His 6-year-old son, Nathan, is in elementary school. "I'm excited to be able to practice law in the town that I'm from and where I want to stay," he says.
Garcia worked at the Lubbock office of the Amarillo-based firm as a 2007 summer associate and a part-time clerk during his final year of law school. As an associate, he is primarily working with the firm's school district clients. The practice involves several areas of expertise, including the education code, labor and employment, and contracts, he says. "It's such a phenomenal practice for a young lawyer, or any lawyer," Garcia says.
 |
| Ronn Paiz Garcia, associate with Underwood, Wilson, Berry, Stein & Johnson in Lubbock |
Alan Rhodes, president and managing partner of the 36-lawyer firm, says, "Ronn will be getting hands-on experience in providing service to the Texas school districts in Region 17, which is centered in Lubbock," he says. The firm represents about 50 school districts, Rhodes says. They range in size from the Lubbock ISD with about 28,000 students to tiny districts with fewer than 100 students in West Texas ranching areas.
"When you go through a West Texas town, the school district is the largest or second- or third-largest business in town," Rhodes says. "Most of the time the school district is the largest employer in town." Working with school districts is a broad practice and similar to acting as a general counsel for each district, Rhodes says. "Representing school districts is good, fun work," he says.
The firm has five or six school district lawyers, Rhodes says. "We are a relationship-based group," he says. The firm has one first-year associate this year and has made offers to four summer associates for 2009. Rhodes says that during his first year as an associate, Garcia will "be in a second-chair position," working with Lubbock shareholders Ann Manning and David P. Backus.
Garcia says he is happy to be working in West Texas where he does not have to deal with the commuting problems common in Texas' larger cities.
"I understand that as an attorney I will be working a lot and have demanding hours sometimes," he says. "I didn't want my days to include an additional two hours of traffic time." He says his office is just a few minutes of driving time from the three-bedroom, two-bath home he and his wife bought in 2002.
"I can call my wife and tell her that I'll be home at 6:30 and really be home at that time," he says. His wife of eight years, Gaila, is a teaching assistant with a Head Start program.
Garcia says that he does not have a typical workday, but he is usually in the office between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. after dropping his son off at school. If he has work with an impending deadline, Garcia says he might stay at the office until 7 p.m. or take the work home and complete it at night after his son goes to sleep. But his work schedule allows flexibility for family events, he says. On a September Monday evening, at about 5:30 p.m., he and his family were enjoying the magic show, carnival rides, petting zoo and exhibits at the annual Panhandle South Plains Fair in Lubbock.
Garcia says he has about $50,000 in law school debt and is earning about $80,000 as a first-year associate. He has no immediate plans to replace the vehicle he drove while he was a law student, a 1991 Ford Explorer. He notes that his annual salary is about seven times the amount of money he earned annually while in law school.
"I still want to live within my means and not feel I have to do anything just because I'm making a little bit of money," he says. Prior to law school, Garcia's wife was a stay-at-home mom while he was an investment consultant with Wells Fargo Bank in Lubbock earning an annual salary of $32,000. "It was a low-to-moderate income for a family of three, but we seemed to do fine," he says.
Garcia's two years of employment with the bank began as a part-time job while he finished earning a bachelor's degree in business administration at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview. While pursuing the undergraduate degree and prior to his banking experience, Garcia had worked as a customer service representative for Dallas-based AT&T Inc., (formerly Cingular Wireless) at a Lubbock call center. He had joined Cingular Wireless after working as a dental technician for five years.
Garcia says when he and Gaila married in 2000, he realized that, to support a family, he needed more education than the high school diploma required for his job as a dental technician. The customer service position with Cingular changed Garcia's life, because the company's tuition reimbursements made it possible for him to afford college, and the work he was doing introduced him to attorneys.
"It was a really interesting job, because I was handling executive-level complaints that came in from all sorts of avenues," he says. Those avenues included calls from customers, private attorneys representing customers and attorneys with state attorneys general offices. The calls Garcia handled included billing questions, complaints about product misrepresentation at the company's stores and contract cancellations.
"I would have conversations with our legal department, and we would rectify the situation," he says. "I felt like I was doing a lot of stuff that would be grunt work for an attorney. But I was not able to participate in the process at the level I'd like to, because I didn't have the legal credentials to do so. I started researching law schools. I decided that's what I wanted to do."
Garcia says the decision he and his wife made in 2005 that he would quit his bank job and concentrate on law school was a good investment. At that time, his wife went from being a stay-at-home mom to a full-time employee with the Head Start Program.
"She's the champ," he says. "When I was a banker, we made the decision to sacrifice and stop doing that and lose income for three years. Now I'm in a period of my life where I can feel that it's going to pay off."
He says most of the work he has been doing for Underwood, Wilson involves labor and employment matters for various school districts. He says he has been researching regulations, writing memos, and helping prepare questions and exhibits for depositions.
"I feel like I'm lacing up the high tops and stepping on the court with the dream team," he says. "These folks are just phenomenal attorneys. That is kind of how I feel."
First-Year Associate
| Juliet M. McBride Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law |
| Law school debt: less than $50,000 Job: associate, King & Spalding City: Houston Salary: $160,000 Car: 1999 Toyota 4Runner |
Juliet M. McBride, an associate with King & Spalding in Houston, first became interested in health-care law while she was working as a marketing and sales representative for Dallas-based Physician's Education Resource. The company hosted educational meetings and seminars for oncologists on cancer trends and treatments. She says it seemed that every decision, including determining whether a discussion about a new drug should be added to the agenda of a physician's advisory meeting, had to get approval from the company's legal department.
"Legal issues are far-reaching in the health-care industry and business overall," she says. "My initial sort of interaction with the law was in this work capacity. It seemed like every aspect of the business would eventually come down to a legal issue."
McBride worked for the medical education company for two years after earning a bachelor's degree in corporate communications and public affairs in 2003 from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In May 2008, she graduated from Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston.
 |
| Juliet M. McBride, associate at King & Spalding in Houston |
McBride initially had accepted a position as a first-year associate with Houston-based Vinson & Elkins' health-care group, where she had been a summer associate in 2007. But in June 2008, the V&E health-care group, headed by then-partner Gary W. Eiland, decided to leave V&E and join the Houston office of Atlanta-based King & Spalding. Eiland contacted McBride in June to inform her about the group's move and to offer her a first-year associate position with King & Spalding. McBride says she knew she wanted to specialize in health-care law and decided to follow Eiland's group.
While King & Spalding had developed a significant health-care practice in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, it did not have health-care expertise in their Houston office, Eiland says.
"We knew they did not have first-year associates in the pipeline," he says. "So we made it clear that we had a couple of 3Ls in Houston and D.C. that had received offers [from V&E]." He says King & Spalding supported the idea of hiring the first-year associates.
"Once we made the decision to move [to K&S] we alerted Juliet and others in the class, and four decided to come with us," Eiland says. McBride says joining King & Spalding has been exciting, because health care is a practice area the firm has decided to grow. "I'm just really thrilled and excited about the opportunity to join them in their transition."
Eiland describes McBride as a second-career person with tremendous poise. "Her communication skills, both orally and written, are just superb," Eiland says. He says that even as a summer associate McBride had the professionalism needed to handle a client meeting on her own. "Her ability to grasp and dissect legal issues and propose a working solution for the client was phenomenal, especially for a summer associate," he says.
The firm's health-care group has three areas of practice: transactional, regulatory and operations. "Juliet will get a chance to work across all those areas," he says. "It will make her a better health law attorney for the future." Even if she gravitates toward one of the three areas, having experience in all of them will maker her better able identify business development opportunities, Eiland says.
McBride's first day at King & Spalding in Houston, where first-year associate annual salaries are $160,000, was Sept. 2. She says her law school debt is less than $50,000. McBride and her husband of almost 10 months, Frederick, are living in a two-bedroom apartment. She plans to drive her 1999 Toyota 4Runner, which has 130,000 miles on it, until it no longer operates. Her husband of almost a year is an elementary and middle-school orchestra teacher who teaches violin, cello, viola and bass.
During her third year in law school, McBride was a research assistant for Sally Terry Green, an assistant professor at Thurgood Marshall. McBride researched the issues involving federal immigration law and the deportation of victimized children, Green says.
"She is very bright in that she approaches every aspect in her life with a degree of consciousness and dedication, almost unrelenting," Green says. "If you ask her to research a project or do an errand, you will get her all. She is not going to minimize the task in any way in terms of what she's going to put into it."
She says that McBride is a good listener and has another essential skill necessary for success in the practice of law: the willingness to ask questions. "Her personality is one that does well in being able to relate to people and gain information," she says.
Since joining King & Spalding, McBride says, she has worked on several research projects, including writing a memo about a pending federal rule regarding compliance issues that could affect the firm's health-care clients. McBride says she particularly enjoys the twice-a-month meetings the Houston health-care group has, via teleconference, with the firm's health-care attorneys in D.C. and Atlanta.
"For a new attorney, to hear the different types of cases going on and to see the cross-functions across the entire practice group is exciting," she says.
Typically, McBride arrives at her office on the 43rd floor in a Houston downtown high-rise by 8:30 a.m., and the end of the workday depends on her work projects. McBride says she will work whatever number of hours it takes to get the job done well.
"I do plan on excelling in the legal field in any way possible," she says. McBride says the attorneys in the Houston health-care practice group are all located on the same floor, in the same area and share an open-door approach about working together. "If I have a question, I just walk into somebody's office and ask them," she says.
Legal Aid in South Texas
| Paul Sebastian Di Blasi University of Texas School of Law |
| Law school debt: about $50,000 Job: attorney, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid City: Edinburg Salary: $37,500 Car: 2001 Honda Civic |
Paul Sebastian Di Blasi is beginning his legal career with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) and plans on spending his entire career practicing public interest law.
"That's the type of law I find interesting and the client interaction I value," he says, "and the kind of values I want to express through my work."
Di Blasi is a May 2008 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law in Austin and began working on Sept. 15 in TRLA's Edinburg office. "I'll be learning a lot in these next few years," he says. "It's incredibly exciting."
Di Blasi earns $37,500 annually, the salary paid to the agency's entry-level staff attorneys, says David G. Hall, TRLA executive director. Di Blasi's initial annual salary was $32,500, the amount the agency pays law school graduates who have not yet passed the Texas bar.
 |
| Paul Sebastian Di Blasi, attorney at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in Edinburg |
Di Blasi says he usually arrives in the office at around 8:30 a.m. and leaves "anywhere between 6 p.m. or 8:30 p.m., depending on work." He says he has been researching and drafting memos and petitions for his colleagues. He also meets with clients to determine what legal assistance they may need from the agency. "I am jumping into as full a role as I can," he says.
TRLA attorneys are organized into teams specializing in practice areas such as housing, family law, tax assistance, and labor and employment, Hall says. The agency's new lawyers choose a primary and secondary team they want to work with when they initially begin working for TRLA, Hall says. Regardless of which practice areas they select, TRLA attorneys work an average of 50 hours per week, but he notes that those work hours often increase when attorneys are preparing for a trial. Hall says that Di Blasi is one of 12 recent law school graduates joining the organization, which has 14 offices and about 113 attorneys. The TRLA's Edinburg office is one of its largest, employing about 30 attorneys, he says.
Di Blasi has decided to join the federal housing subsidy team as his primary practice area. It's an area about which he has some knowledge, due to participating in a housing clinic while at UT Law. His secondary team is the group that works with low-wage workers on such issues as collecting unpaid wages.
Fred J. Fuchs is TRLA's team leader for cases related to federal housing programs and an adjunct professor at the UT law school. He also directs the school's Housing Law Clinic, where students earn course credit while working with TRLA attorneys. Di Blasi participated in the Housing Law Clinic during the 2008 spring semester. His empathy for the clients, his writing skills and his ability to think critically will be assets for the TRLA and the housing team, Fuchs says.
While working with the clinic, Di Blasi assisted with cases involving tenant-selection policies at a subsidized housing community and helped file a suit against a housing complex that had an overly restrictive rule barring people with criminal backgrounds from renting, Fuchs says. He says he cannot name the suit, because the case is ongoing.
Di Blasi also helped the Sunnymead Tenant Association draft a restrictive covenant that requires a developer renovating the property where the tenants live to set aside new units for affordable housing, Fuchs says. The developer was trying to obtain funding from the city, which required the developer to get support from the tenant association.
"He attended several meetings and took their ideas and put them into an agreement, which they then took back to the developer's representative and negotiated back and forth," Fuchs says. "He helped put their ideas into enforceable language."
Hall agrees that Di Blasi will be an asset to the legal aid organization. Di Blasi worked for TRLA at the housing clinic during his last year of law school, Hall says, and "everybody really liked the quality of his work." He adds, "[W]e have great expectations for Paul."
Di Blasi grew up in San Antonio and says his interest in public interest law stems from work he did in the San Antonio area after graduating in 2002 from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. He attended Williams College as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, majoring in political science and English.
When he graduated from college, Di Blasi wanted to be an academic. He says the Mellon Fellowship was "a program designed to put minorities into academic positions." But as Di Blasi worked at a variety of jobs, such as registering voters with the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and volunteering to teach Spanish GED math classes at an adult community learning center, he discovered he had a passion for community activism.
"I thought it would be better to work more directly with people, to interact with society and make things happen," he says. "As time passed, I realized it made more sense to get a law degree."
He decided there would be two advantages to earning a law degree: He would be more marketable to nonprofit organizations as a potential employee, and he would be able to earn a living. Di Blasi estimates he has about $50,000 in law school debt and says he will be applying to educational loan repayment assistance programs, such as the Texas Access to Justice Foundation's (TAJF) Texas Student Loan Repayment Assistance Program. The program helps attorneys who work for nonprofit organizations such as the TRLA pay their student loans, says Lisa Melton, special projects manager for the TAJF in Austin. Each recipient receives up to $400 per month to pay their student loan debt, regardless of the amount of the debt, as long as they continue to work for the nonprofit organization, she says.
Di Blasi is sharing a three-bedroom house near downtown McAllen, the largest city near Edinburg, with two other first-year TRLA attorneys, Sarah Donaldson and Kristin Small. "It's a nice house," he says. "A lot of attorneys in legal aid live near there, and I can walk to several of my friends' and co-workers' homes." Di Blasi says he is relying on his 2001 Honda Civic for transportation.
"Making around $40,000 a year is not that bad," he says. "And while I haven't quite budgeted to figure out how it will work, I don't think it will be that uncomfortable at all living on that kind of money. I had less money while I was in law school."
