As attorney fellows in the family law unit at Philadelphia Legal Assistance, we provide free legal services to low-income Philadelphians in protection from abuse (PFA) and custody matters. Our fellowships each involve different substantive legal areas. Our respective overlapping areas include families with DHS/dependency court involvement, pending criminal offenses and housing insecurity. We see how these obstacles overlap with PFA and custody cases, causing ripple effects in our clients' lives. We attorneys know it is extremely taxing for people to keep up with one case, let alone several different cases in different areas of law, all at once. Our clients have a PFA and custody to navigate while also facing other systemic injustices daily. We are driven by a deep sense of duty to advocate for those most vulnerable and to amplify their voices in a system that often seems immovable. Our clients remind us of what justice and equality looks like for real individuals, outside the theoretical ideals described in laws and textbooks.

Our clients are your neighbors, your local grocery store clerk or your child's teacher. They are members of our Philadelphia community. They work full-time or care for children and family members full-time. Sometimes, they do both. They attend parent-teacher conferences and IEP meetings. They worry about whether they will be able to make rent this month. They help their children with homework. They make sure that their children are safe and taken care of every single day. They co-parent and make important decisions about their children's welfare, many times with their abusers, to comply with custody orders. They are concerned about minimizing the effects of this volatility and trauma on their children and preserving any semblance of innocence among overwhelming adversity. They miss work (and pay!) for numerous court listings—as a victim complainant in criminal court, in their custody proceedings, in their protection from abuse matters, in their child support matters to increase their income to better care for their children. Sometimes, their abusers bring them back to court again and again for frivolous reasons. There are parking fees, childcare expenses and no pay for missing work.