Phyllis Holmen was one of the many idealistic young lawyers who came South during the early 1970s to do poverty law—and, unlike many, she’s still doing it.

The Chicago native joined the new Georgia Legal Services Program (GLSP) in 1974 after law school at the University of Illinois, and she’s never left. “I had no interest in working for a firm. I went to law school to do this,” she says.