Unfortunately, Your IEP Doesn’t Qualify You for Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

A student sits at his desk and struggles to focus on his assignment. He can’t see very well but refuses to wear his glasses because he’s embarrassed by how he looks in them. He has no friends and comes home to spend most of his free time locked in his room playing video games. His …

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Project

Audrey Shreve, GBLS Law Student Intern with the Children’s Disability Project, Northeastern University School of Law, Class of 2023 As an intern with the Children’s Disability Project (CDP) at Greater Boston Legal Services this spring, I took a deep dive into Social Security work. Through my internship, my goal was to ensure that my clients …

The Case for Abolishing the Dedicated Account: How I spent my summer navigating Social Security, disability law, and the regulations that keep families trapped in poverty

Geoffrey McGee, J.D. Candidate at Harvard Law School, Summer 2021 Legal Intern with GBLS’ Children’s Disability Project. When I began my summer internship with the GBLS’ Children’s Disability Project (CDP), I didn’t know what a dedicated account was. Without a lot of background knowledge, I probably would have assumed that any child with a disability …

Tackling a Systemic Problem: How the Children’s Disability Project Is Fighting the Dedicated Account

WHAT IS A DEDICATED ACCOUNT? Dedicated account (n.): A separate bank account into which the Social Security Administration (SSA) deposits retroactive, or past-due, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit payments.             On the surface, this sounds straightforward enough. Imagine that John (a fictive client, age 8) applied for SSI in January 2018 and was denied. John’s …

Meet Our Team: Nasrin Mohammad

Nasrin Mohammad has always been interested in working with children and families – and in November 2018, this interest steered her to the Children’s Disability Project of Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS-CDP). At the time, she was a 3L at Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL), completing her fourth and final “co-op,” a school-credited learning …

Civil legal aid gives mother a voice and hope

Courtesy of Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC). Danielle’s daughter was born with sickle cell anemia, a potentially life threatening disease. After her applications for benefits were denied twice, Danielle reached out to Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) for help with what would become an eight-year legal battle for her daughter’s health coverage. When her daughter …

Meet Our Team: Majda Abbas, Legal Intern

“Since deciding to pursue a career in the legal field, I knew that I wanted to be able to advocate and help those who could not afford representation,” said Majda Abbas, who has been a Legal Intern with the Children’s Disability Project since March 2019. Majda is a rising 3L at Suffolk Law School, concentrating …

Meet Our Team: Isabel Ruehl, Undergraduate Intern

On June 3 – just two month ago – I started my summer-long student internship with Attorney Taramattie Doucette, Project Director of the Children’s Disability Project (CDP). I didn’t yet speak the language of “ALJs” and “HIPAA releases” and “file memos”; I hardly knew the difference between SSI and SSDI, between Medicare and Medicaid. I …

Pro Bono Partnerships

Featured in the GBLS Annual Report 2019. For several years, lawyers from Proskauer Rose LLP have partnered with attorneys from Greater Boston Legal Services’ Children’s Disability Project to help children and their families appeal wrongful denials of disability benefits. For GBLS’ young clients, the financial support received through disability benefits allows them to meet their …

Meet Our Staff: Brian Kiwanuka, Esq.

Since March of 2017, Brian Kiwanuka has been a Staff Attorney of GBLS’s Children’s Disability Project and Elder, Health and Disability Unit (EHDU). His expertise spans many areas: from children’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) cases to adult SSI and Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) cases, from Medicare to nursing home law, Brian applies his passion …