Winter
2003
Volume 96, Number 2
C L O S E - U P
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A pro bono pro 
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| 32When
Edwin Clapp retired in 1979 after a 33-year career as a lawyer
at the U.S. Department of State’s Agency for International Development,
he hoped to discover a way to be useful in retirement. When a friend
told him about volunteer opportunities at the Legal Counsel for
the Elderly (LCE) in Washington, D.C., he was sure he had found his calling.
Since
1980, the Bethesda, Md., resident has given more than 4,000 hours
of unpaid legal service to LCE clients—the D.C. area’s elderly
poor. In 1998 he received the prestigious Senior Lawyers Division
Pro Bono Award from the American Bar Association. Clapp’s cases have involved everything from routine landlord-tenant disputes to complex estate issues impacting clients’ titles to their homes. The resolution of these legal entanglements keeps clients from being evicted from their apartments or losing their homes. “I find myself running down to the courthouse, going to the registrar of deeds to straighten it all out,” Clapp says. “The same thing goes for wills. Somebody dies without a will. Who gets what? Who is appointed to take care of the estate? Who sees that the house gets sold or cleaned out? Without a will, it really is a terrible problem. And for the elderly poor, what little money they might have can get chewed up pretty fast if they have to hire a lawyer,” he says. That’s when Clapp comes to the rescue with free legal aid. Clapp, who calls the urban poor of America “our own Third World,” recalls the time when government reform of welfare and Medicare was getting under way. A case under review involved a man who’d had a heart attack and was receiving Medicare assistance, but the government wanted to revoke it; they believed he could get a job as a night watchman. Not only was he told he was not entitled to receive aid, but he had to pay back what he had already received, and if he didn’t his house would be confiscated. “Well, the man was scared stiff,” reports Clapp. “Here was Big Brother coming after him with a big stick, so he came [to LCE], and we finally straightened it out and got his Medicare restored. He ultimately died of his heart condition, but he didn’t lose his house.” Clapp says the payoff for the hours put in is the gratitude and appreciation he receives from the people he helps. “It is a very rewarding experience,” he says. Another aspect of Clapp’s pro bono work involves Advanced Directives Workshops, a program sponsored by LCE. The workshops are designed for seniors who want information about durable powers of attorney and health care directives and need to know how to execute these legal documents. As well as leading workshops for 10 years, Clapp has been instrumental in their development. Terence Cooney, a staff attorney with LCE who has known Clapp for more than 15 years, says, “I have been so impressed with Ed’s selfless attention to the legal needs of our clients. His exceptional knowledge of the subject matter in the Advanced Directives Workshops and his engaging presentation skills make him a big favorite with the elderly clients.” There was a time, says Cooney, when Clapp was “giving these workshops while hauling around a portable oxygen device because of a pulmonary problem he was having at the time; he’s an amazing man.” Clapp, a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, was unable to attend the ceremony honoring him with the ABA’s pro bono award because he was in China on tour with the Yale Alumni Chorus. His love of singing began at Andover where, as a one-year senior scholarship student who waited tables in Commons, both he and his lifelong friend Jack Cates ’32 sang in the Glee Club. In college they sang together in the Yale Glee Club and the Whiffenpoofs, and they continued singing together for more than 40 years. Clapp was sidelined in the fall as he recovered both from a broken hip and the death of his wife, Jeanne. He says he has recovered well enough from hip surgery to drive a car. “I’ll be back down there [at LCE] in the new year doing my job,” he says. —Paula
Trespas
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