Cover Story article on John Keller
NC Catholics
magazine, March 2006
From the NC Catholics magazine; website:
www.NCCatholics.orgHope Challenges Us
John Keller, a lawyer with Legal Aid of North Carolina, advocates for the
poor
By Rich Reece / Pictures by Denmark Photography
It’s a good way to start a new year: talking at length with a person of
hope. On January 2, I met with John Keller, Supervising Attorney for Legal Aid
of North Carolina’s Wilson office. Right away I learned something I didn’t know.
“You hear that phrase all the time: ‘You have a right to an attorney.’” Keller
explains. “But that only applies to criminal cases. In civil cases -- if
you’re evicted from your home, if you’re victimized by a predatory lender, if
you’re unjustly denied access to health care – you have to hire a lawyer on your
own. If you can’t afford one, that’s where Legal Aid comes in.”
I’d learned about John from people in the “justice community” in Raleigh,
people who work for social change in a variety of areas, and I already had a
scenario in mind: Bright young legal mind graduates from Duke Law School. The
world is his oyster; Wall Street beckons. Suddenly, blinded by the light of the
Gospel, he turns his back on worldly success and becomes an avenger for the
poor. The truth was less dramatic.
“I grew up Catholic in New Jersey,” Keller explains, “and my parents set a
wonderful example for my brother and me. Their selflessness…When you’re a kid
you don’t think of parenting as a ministry, but that’s how they practiced it.
When I was 18 I went to Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. That’s when I
started to think more about my personal faith. I attended the local church
there, and in my junior year a pastor arrived whose sermons really made me think
about how faith affects life. He gave me a broader understanding of Catholicism,
that it was about more than just my personal salvation.”
Keller was majoring in Economics, and the homilies he heard on Sundays led
him to study alternative economic systems. “I learned that self-interest didn’t
need to be the only basis of an economy, and that you couldn’t separate the
Christian message from politics and business. Understanding why things are the
way they are, I asked, ‘Do they have to be that way?’”
So there was no road-to-Damascus moment. Keller found a law career
attractive especially because it was in line with his convictions, and a desire
somehow to serve low-income people. After Duke he interned at legal aid offices
in Ahoskie and Charlotte before joining what is now Legal Aid of North Carolina.
After 18 years, he says, “I still find the work rewarding. It’s still the right
path for me.”
Legal Aid helps people in a variety of situations. Their Web site lists
public benefits, housing, senior citizens matters, consumer complaints, health,
family law, employment, education and civil rights. Keller describes a typical
case:
“A woman and her husband had separated. She wanted to refinance their
mortgage, for two reasons: to put it in her name and to make lower payments,
since her ex’s income would no longer be part of the equation. Her only income
was Social Security disability payments.
“Like many people below the poverty level, this woman was not going to
qualify for a loan from a major bank. She needed to go to what we call a
‘sub-prime’ lender. She dialed an 800 number, and was told the company would pay
off her outstanding mortgage and refinance at a lower interest rate; they
promised lower payments.
“They broke the promise. When the paperwork arrived the payments stipulated
were higher. They told the woman she’d only need to make the higher payments for
six months to establish her credit, then the rate would go down. So for six
months she actually borrowed to make these payments. At the end of that time the
company reneged on the financing and the woman faced foreclosure. At that point
she came to Legal Aid.
“We sued the lender for fraud and misrepresentation. In the end they
renegotiated the loan at the terms they originally promised.”
In another case, Keller’s client, a single mother with two children, had
been evicted from subsidized housing. “I think there’s a public perception that
being evicted isn’t such a big deal,” Keller says. “You just find another place
to live, right? Wrong. It’s a huge disruption to a family. It upsets school
schedules and transportation arrangements, and it can make it extremely
difficult to rent elsewhere.”
The landlord in this case alleged a pattern of minor lease violations. “We
thought it was mostly a personality conflict,” Keller says. “It didn’t justify
termination of the lease.” The case went to trial and a settlement resulted that
allowed the woman to stay till the lease expired and leave of her own accord
rather than be evicted. “The client was satisfied,” Keller says. “I thought we
could have overturned the eviction completely if we’d continued.”
I ask Keller if he ever gets discouraged. So many of the problems faced by
the poor result from attitudes that seem entrenched in our society. Are
individual success stories a consolation when the same kinds of cases keep
coming up over and over again?
“Some days, maybe,” Keller smiles. “It’s true that the fundamental problems
of the poor don’t change. But I do see some positive changes. The work of legal
aid lawyers and people in other justice-seeking organizations can call attention
to inequities and lead to change in the public mindset that can eventually
affect legislation. North Carolina is really progressive, for example, in the
area of consumer legislation such as restrictions on predatory lenders. We also
have good healthcare availability for children of the working poor, even when
their parents don’t qualify.”
Keller is a man of hope and patience, then, who believes that faith leads to
service. Besides his work at Legal Aid, he serves on the Board of Catholic
Social Ministries, and he takes communion to the sick of Cathedral Parish in
Raleigh.
A few days after our interview, I showed up with a photographer at Keller’s
office in Wilson. He greeted me with a smile and handed me a photocopied excerpt
from a magazine of daily inspirations he receives. “After our talk the other
day,” he said, “I thought it was coincidental that this should be the quote for
today.”
The quote, by Sister Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D., reads, “Cynicism is deadly
because it can actually affect the outcome of the future. If I truly believe
there’s no hope for tomorrow, then I won’t invest my time and energy in helping
to make tomorrow better than today. The opposite of cynicism is hope. Hope
expects good things to happen. It enables us to see flowers where others only
see weeds… Hope challenges us daily to build a better world by consistent and
concrete acts of justice, compassion, patience, generosity and love.”
SIDEBAR:
LEGAL AID OF NORTH
CAROLINA
Legal Aid of North Carolina, formerly Legal Services of North
Carolina, is funded by federal and state grants, as well as grants from private
foundations. The staff at the
Wilson
office
(252-291-6851) provides legal assistance in civil matters to eligible,
low-income clients who have problems with their basic needs and live in the
surrounding six-county area, the counties of Edgecombe, Greene, Lenoir, Nash,
Wayne and Wilson. LANC also provides two “Intake Site” offices in
Goldsboro (919-731-2800) and Rocky Mount (252-442-0635). Apply for help by
calling during Intake Hours, 8:30AM-4:00PM Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
_________________
RELATED ARTICLE(S):
*
"25 Years of Free Service,"
Wilson Daily Times, November 1, 2006
* "Duke Law Education Inspires Alumnus to Pursue Poverty Law Practice,"
Duke Law Magazine, Spring 2003 , pp. 44-45
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