Until recently, Danielle Barnes was volunteering seven days a week for HIV causes, splitting her time between ALRP and an HIV counseling position and somehow managing to get in some time at a retail job to pay the rent. Danielle arrived in San Francisco in 2011 immediately after graduating from Whitman College with a bachelor’s degree in gender studies and a minor in anthropology.

For me, one of the best things about practicing law is that I get to solve problems for people, said attorney Brian Trowbridge. Brian, a former ALRP law clerk, is now a Panel attorney. When I clerked for ALRP I was amazed by how many problems I could help solve without turning to the court.

While he was earning his undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia in Athens, ALRP Board member and Panel Attorney Adam Podowitz-Thomas worked as an HIV counselor, and it was the plight of one of his clients that pushed him towards a career in law. My client was dropped by his insurance company after being diagnosed HIV+, Adam said. I was so horrified by it. I became dedicated to making sure this didnt happen to anyone else in the future.

As soon as my clients landlord found out he was HIV+, she started harassing him, said Panel Attorney Jin Shim. Suddenly she was filing eviction papers and trying to get a restraining order against him. Jins client was woken up at 3 a.m. one night because his landlord was running a paper shredder right outside his front door. When the landlord wasnt running a shredder, she was banging on the stairs or playing the TV or radio upstairs at full blast all night long.