VOLS Monthly Newsletter

Meeting the Moment with Clinics, Resources and Consultations

We know the news continues to bring deeply concerning new changes for our clients. VOLS’ projects are keeping access to information front and center as policies impacting our clients rapidly shift. 

VOLS Immigration Project is holding weekly virtual briefings for our volunteer partners to analyze recent legal and policy changes and their implications for immigrant youth. The team is also producing updated guidance, most recently on Real ID Eligibility. Our Benefits Law Project‘s recently updated Rent Increase Exemption Guide is live on our site, as is the Senior Law Project’s new guide on how to manage social media accounts after somebody passes away. The latter outlines the policies and procedures of major social media and technology platforms regarding the accounts of users who have passed away, including memorialization options, deletion procedures, required documentation, and available support links.  

We continue to celebrate the successes of our amazing team. Next week VOLS Pro Bono Director and Incarcerated Mothers Law Project Director Stephanie Taylor will be receiving the NYC Bar Association’s Legal Services Award for her work supporting mothers and parents in prison or jail with access to high quality free family law services. We are thrilled Stephanie will be recognized and look forward to cheering her on!  

Best, 

Abja Midha | She/Her
Executive Director, Volunteers of Legal Service

Financial Institution Pro Bono Day 2025

VOLS was proud to participate in the sixth annual Financial Institution Pro Bono Day through clinics, collaboration, and community impact. VOLS Senior Law Project worked with Bank of America and McGuireWoods LLP to provide pro bono legal services to support older adults with their life planning needs, VOLS Immigration Project collaborated with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, JPMorgan Chase, and Kaplan Education Trust on a naturalization clinic, and VOLS Benefits Law Project teamed up with Debevoise & Plimpton and The D. E. Shaw Group on a Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) clinic to help older adults learn about and apply for essential public benefits under the NYC Rent Freeze Program.


VOLS 2025 Gala

We invite you to watch our feature videos highlighting our work, our clients, our pro bono and community partners, and our mission. Thank you to our pro bono and community partners for your ongoing support in helping New Yorkers access justice, and to our clients, who entrust their complex and personal legal needs to us every day. 



Get To Know Our Team

As part of the VOLS Spotlight Series, we spoke with Alyssa Villareal, Senior Staff Attorney for the VOLS Senior Law Project.  

How does the Senior Law Project (SLP) support older adults in our community? 
SLP assists older adults with issues revolving around death and incapacity – preparing and executing wills and advance directives and assisting with the filing of voluntary administration. Advance planning helps to ensure that these adults will have someone to act and speak on their behalf if they become unable to do so themselves, for example, due to dementia or hospitalization. It ensures that they have someone who can pay their rent, sign their renewal leases, apply for and maintain their benefits, make medical decisions, and so much more. It helps avoid legal disputes and entanglements after the adult’s death and helps ensure that their wishes are honored.   

Is there an experience and/or client that you found particularly memorable?     
A few months ago, I was contacted by someone who said her cousin needed a Power of Attorney so she could handle her cousin’s banking transactions on her behalf, which the cousin was unable to do herself. The cousin resided in a nursing home, was unable to speak, and was unable to write. Generally, we conduct capacity assessments over the phone and refer cases to pro bono, but seeing as I could not do that assessment over the phone, I handled the case in-house. A couple of my colleagues and I visited her in the nursing home. Beforehand, I printed out many pages of things I wrote, such as explaining what we were doing, asking what she wanted, and giving her options to point to so that she wasn’t just giving me “yes” or “no” answers, which would be insufficient given the high required standard of capacity for doing this document. On one page, I asked her in writing if she could tell me what a Power of Attorney is and gave her several options: A, B, C, D, and E. She read through them and pointed to the correct answer, looking up at me with a look as if to say, “obviously, ma’am, I know what this document is.” One of my colleagues, with the consent of the client, initialed, dated, and signed the document on her behalf, and we were able to provide the client with this necessary document. 

Tell us about yourself. What does your ideal weekend look like?  
A good weekend has to consist of spending a lot of time with my cat, and if I’m extra lucky, other people’s pets as well. I love really nice beer, and food, so a gastronomically indulgent weekend is a good weekend. Yoga and Pilates also make their way into my weekends, as do drag and burlesque. er convention with the MEP team, getting to interact with clients face to face – and often in their communities – provides meaningful and crucial perspectives which I bring back to other aspects of my role.



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Project Updates

VOLS Benefits Law Project (BLP) helped older adults meet their housing needs through our Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) legal clinics and presentations. This month BLP conducted a rent freeze presentation at the Union Settlement Association and presented on Fair Housing Laws to 60 staff members at the Jericho Project. BLP held a SCRIE clinic with volunteer attorneys from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and continued to hold weekly Unemployment Insurance clinics supported by pro bono partner Fried Frank. To better support our volunteer attorneys, BLP recently circulated a revised Unemployment Insurance Call-back Clinic Guidance.

VOLS Immigration Project (IP) supported immigrant young people and their families. VOLS IP continues to hold screening clinics through our partnership with Trinity Commons, this month supported by pro bono attorneys from Fried Frank and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. VOLS IP conducted a CLE on Asylum 101 to 90 attorneys at the American Immigration Lawyers Association and IP Director Keighly Rector was featured in Victim Rights Law Center’s newsletter as a participant on their panel for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

VOLS Incarcerated Mothers Law Project (IMLP) Director Stephanie Taylor was a panelist at the 2025 ABA/NLADA Equal Justice Conference, presenting “Combating the Negative Impacts of Incarceration on Families and Children” alongside Kathleen Creamer and D’Adre Cunningham. The session provided meaningful and much needed conversation about how to work together to drive meaningful reform, keep families together and build stronger communities for families facing systemic challenges due to incarceration. IMLP Director Stephanie Taylor also recently published an article and participated as a panelist on the ABA’s Human Rights Magazine Intra-Community Inequities: Perspectives from Featured Authors of Marginalized within Marginalized Communities and presented on “Ethics of Working with Incarcerated Clients” at Practicing Law Institute‘s Prison Law 2025 Program to an audience of 199 attendees.  

IMLP worked with volunteer attorneys from Fried Frank to provide education, advocacy, and counsel at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and held a clinic at Rikers Island’s Rose M. Singer Center alongside attorneys from Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP and Freshfields.  

VOLS Microenterprise Project (MEP) presented “Legal Considerations for Small Food Businesses” to entrepreneurs in the food industry through our partnership with Hot Bread Kitchen. MEP will be on-site today (May 29) at the NYC Small Business Month Expo to provide transactional legal support and information to NYC’s small business owners supported by volunteer attorneys from DLA Piper, Fried Frank, Kirkland & Ellis, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Wells Fargo.

VOLS Senior Law Project (SLP) continues to support older adults where they live, work and gather. This month, SLP held legal clinics and educational programs with community partner Greenwich House’s Westbeth and Center on the Square and teamed up with JPMorgan Chase and Davis Polk & Wardwell to hold a legal clinic on JPMorgan Chase’s Annual Day of Service.



Recent Testimony

VOLS Microenterprise Project Staff Attorney Nick Aquino testified before the New York City Council’s Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection, noting that expanding access to permits and ending arbitrary caps that keep thousands of vendors in legal limbo would bring order to the system while allowing the City’s smallest businesses to thrive and ensure vendors are subject to siting and health regulations while removing barriers to entry. He also noted the creation of an Office of Street Vendor Services within SBS to provide vital education, outreach and compliance support would help vendors succeed and create a fair, supportive and inclusive system for street vendors across New York City. A full copy of the testimony is available on our website.



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