Starting a Student Loan Practice for the Legal Services Practitioner

Many legal service consumer law attorneys experience heavy caseloads and want to take on federal student loan work but do not feel they have the capacity. However, building a small student loan practice is possible. Given the right tools and approach, legal aid attorneys can achieve a more diverse and satisfying caseload.

The webinar will discuss step-by-step methods for addressing student loan debt within your already-busy workload. Learn how to vary the level of service for student loan debt clients in a manageable way and to develop strategies that provide services at all levels from basic advice and counsel to full representation. This training will focus on supporting legal service attorneys who wish to expand their consumer law work to include more student loan work.

What You Will Learn

• How to evaluate which cases need extensive services and which require only brief advice or directives to the client.
• How to balance a large caseload while successfully integrating student loans work into your practice.
• How to leverage already-existing resources to maximize the assistance provided to clients.
• How to prioritize certain student loan cases over others for a more integrated and manageable practice.

Speaker

Shanna Tallarico is a supervising attorney with the New York Legal Assistance Group’s (NYLAG) Consumer Protection Unit (CPU). As an attorney for NYLAG’s Consumer Protection Project, Shanna represents vulnerable New Yorkers by fighting fraud, predatory lending, and illegal debt collection practices. Shanna advocates on behalf of clients who are facing identity theft, debt collection scams, credit reporting errors, subprime loan conditions, and other personal financial crises. Shanna serves as a project attorney for the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) project. Through this program, she provides legal advice and guidance to OFE financial counselors and assists clients with consumer financial issues with a particular focus on student debt.  Shanna serves as the chair for the Civil Court Committee of the New York City Bar Association where she works to identify issues in the courts and address the needs of its litigants by advocating and taking positions that promote efficiency, justice, and access in the NYC Civil Courts.