spotlight

Congratulations to ALRP Staff Attorney, Brandon Lawrence, who received the 2016 Minority Bar Coalition Unity Award at the MBC Unity Awards on November 16, 2016. This award recognizes attorneys who have been exemplary in promoting the cause of diversity and inclusiveness in the legal community. Nominated by the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Elizabeth McGriff, Brandon is ecstatic that Ms. McGriff selected him as this year’s awardee.

My first contact with ALRP was brief. It was the mid-nineties and the first tech boom was going full steam – a modern day Gold Rush. Landlords were cashing in by forcing out long-term residents by any means necessary. During those years I was acutely sick, and one day I came home from receiving a treatment at Davies Medical Center to find an eviction notice taped to my door telling me to vacate the premises in 30 days.

ALRP client Trieu has been living in downtown San Francisco on the same street, in the same building, and in the same apartment since escaping from a war-torn Vietnam in 1979. Trieu recently experienced pressure to vacate his home of 36 years when he received a 3-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit.

When Angela Bean agreed to take on Mario’s immigration case, she knew it was going to be complicated. Mario was a Cuban immigrant who had come to the United States via boatlift in the 1980s. He was an HIV+ gay man in his late fifties, and had an unclear immigration status. Over the last several years he had been referred to multiple immigration attorneys but due to his very low income and a series of personal problems, he had been unable to make a connection.