On top of being the clinical director at Crisis
Ministries who oversees all the social work done on behalf of
the "guests" at the city's only homeless shelter, Yungman
is the linchpin in a legal aid clinic that will be up and running
this winter to serve the men, women, children, and families that
have fallen into the shelter's safety net.
The clinic is a three-way effort among the shelter,
the Charleston School of Law (CSL), where Yungman takes night
courses, and the corporate law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley &
Scarborough. The clinic will pair guests with law students and
a Nelson Mullins lawyer in January when the school's spring semester
begins.
Yungman, frustrated by past failed attempts to start
a legal clinic at the shelter, decided to attend CSL and handle
all the legal problems the guests face. Judging by the shelter's
two packed houses, that could be a herculean feat. …
Last week, Yungman convinced one of his law school
professors, Fernando Colon-Navaro, a visiting professor who has
worked at the Harvard Legal Clinic, to help write an affidavit
for one of the shelter's guests who had lost his green card.
Those are exactly the kinds of problems attorney
Stephanie Lewis believes her colleagues at Nelson Mullins can
solve for free - a substantial reduction in fees, considering
some of the firm's senior partners charge in excess of $350 an
hour for their time on a case.
