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Nominated by Susan Coppedge

"A 1987 graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, Susan A. Reif has been an attorney with Georgia Legal Services Program (GLSP) her entire career. During her initial practice in Augusta and surrounding smaller communities, she represented clients in a wide range of civil cases. She later moved to GLSP’s Piedmont office, serving counties just outside of metro Atlanta, where she gravitated to housing cases. She represented hundreds of tenants and developed expertise in public and subsidized housing as well as property issues.

Susan became GLSP’s Housing Specialist Attorney in 1997, assuming responsibility for training, advising GLSP’s lawyers, and co-counseling on appeals in housing cases. In 2019, she became Director of GLSP’s Housing Unit. 

Susan has written articles on housing for Clearinghouse Review with an emphasis on rural issues. She co-authored “Housing Programs Unique to Rural Areas” for the 2002 Poverty Law Manual for the New Attorney.

On request of legislators, Susan has testified regarding housing bills including healthy homes legislation that passed the Georgia General Assembly. 
Expanding GLSP’s housing advocacy has been Susan’s priority. In 2018, when GLSP had the opportunity to apply for housing-related funding, she conceived an Eviction Prevention Project (EPP) to focus on private landlord-tenant cases. Through funding for EPP, the Georgia Bar Foundation also enabled GLSP to create a Housing Advice Line to provide advice and brief services to tenants living in private housing. Susan trained a cadre of housing lawyers to represent tenants to preserve their homes.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Susan and the housing unit lawyers were poised to develop strategies for addressing evictions. Leveraging her relationships at the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), she obtained funding in 2021 to assist tenants applying for rental assistance through DCA and to provide tenants with legal assistance.

When the CDC’s moratorium on evictions ended in August 2021, Susan knew the Emergency Rental Assistance Program would be overwhelmed with applicants and requests from clients facing evictions. She asked GLSP’s Pro Bono Unit for volunteer assistance to help with initial tenant interviews — a process that can take 1-2 hours to complete. Susan and GLSP’s Director of Pro Bono Innovation worked together to triage legal emergencies identified by volunteers and manage the post-CDC moratorium influx of rental assistance cases. Eighty-five legal volunteers, including lawyers and law students, interviewed 354 tenants. With this help, the GLSP Housing Unit was able to redirect staff time and resources to related housing issues. GLSP’s Rental Assistance Pro Bono Project was highlighted during a White House and Department of Justice program following the Attorney General’s Call to Action to the Legal Profession, issued August 2021, to address the housing and eviction crisis.

Susan has since secured more funding for GLSP to provide legal assistance to tenants and assist tenants with their rental assistance applications through DCA. In three years, the Housing Unit secured $16 million in rental assistance for clients and, through DCA-funded lawyers, has helped stabilize housing for thousands of Georgians."