Lisa Palumbo, supervisory attorney of the Immigration Project at the Legal Assistance Foundation (LAF), will lead an introduction to writing legal affidavits.  We will discuss balancing the needs for client voice and representation with the evidentiary requirements that such affidavits must satisfy.  The focus will be on affidavits in the immigration law context, though affidavit writing is a necessary skill in a wide range of legal practice areas.  Lunch will be provided.

Lisa Palumbo moved to Chicago from New York out of law school and worked for a year as a staff attorney at Travelers and Immigrants Aid (now the National Immigrant Justice Center).  In 1989, she left Chicago to work as a Legal Consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Hong Kong, monitoring the first-time asylum interviews of Vietnamese nationals by the Hong Kong Immigration Service.  Lisa later returned to the U.S. to work for Proyecto Libertad, representing detained Central American asylum seekers.  In 1992, Lisa returned to Chicago to work for LAF as a staff attorney and later supervisor of the Immigration Project.  LAF's Immigration Project has earned a national reputation for its work with immigrants in removal proceedings, immigrant crime victims, and the immigration consequences of criminal convictions.  LAF has recognized Lisa's work in the project with the Equal Justice and Jerold Solovy awards.  The Lawyers Trust Fund, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice have also recognized her work.