Executive Director Hannah Lieberman joined NLSP in late March, 2012, bringing extensive experience as a litigator, advocate for low-income persons and legal services manager to the position. In 1992, she left her position as a litigation Partner at the Washington, DC law firm of Shaw Pittman Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman) to become the Director of Advocacy for Community Legal Services (CLS) in Arizona, a multi-county civil legal services program. She left CLS in 1998 to become the Director of Advocacy (and later Deputy Executive Director) of the Legal Aid Bureau (Legal Aid), Maryland’s statewide civil legal services program. At Legal Aid, she supervised delivery of the program’s wide range of legal services, led teams of lawyers in complex state and federal cases, supervised an active appellate practice and spearheaded community listening and other strategic efforts. After 10 years at Legal Aid, Hannah started her own consulting firm, working with legal services organizations across the country on strengthening strategic advocacy, evaluation, planning and training. She has practiced in virtually all of the areas of a traditional legal services practice, including housing, consumer, public benefits, health, family, juvenile rights, education and employment law.
Hannah believes that a truly great legal services program is deeply engaged in and with the communities it serves, committed to providing excellent service to address the most pressing needs of low-income individuals and families, and actively pursues solutions to overcome recurrent or systemic barriers facing low-income persons and communities.