Okay, Cameron you have our full attention all right so I'm glad everyone made it here despite the thunderous rain we're about to have from judging by the clouds my presentation's gonna be on a topic I've done a lot of research on and I'm very passionate about so it's relating to mental health so before I go any further into this I want you all to think about if you hear a client or somebody you know has a mental health condition what does that person look like maybe you have somebody you know that has a condition but if you were to say you don't have somebody you know what would that person look like to you and just take them on a kind of picture what that person what you vision people with a mental health disorder have hopefully now that you think of so now while these extreme cases do exist the point of today's topic is not to deal with the more extreme kind of criminal defense sort of stuff today we're going to be talking about particularly for lawyers in practice they're going to be working with people that have mental health conditions or even in the representation of a client they may have a rep mental health condition or even those of you that are going into the field chances are you're probably going to end up working with someone with mental health condition now the condition really isn't important to how you handle those with diminished capacity or those you think may have diminished capacity that's not really important to the area maybe it's useful for you to know for certain ways you handle business and I'll give some examples of that but some of you may be thinking well I'm not going to be dealing with people with mental health illness you know I'm working in environment or I'm working in taxes or I'm working you know in an area where you don't think it's going to populate in fact that's probably not the case because one in four people are going to have some kind of mental health problem during their life so there are eight of us in this room if that statistic holds true two of us potentially could have a mental health condition so it's very prevalent and even though it may not be the core of the legal issue you're dealing with it is something to take in to account when you're working with those that have a mental health condition or your interview so I'm going to talk primarily today about the tips and the roles of the lawyer that are representing those with mental health conditions and then at later point we're going to talk a little bit about the competency and the ethics around it because that's very important in these cases and one of the things I want to mention up front is although your role as a lawyer does not change you still have that same obligation to provide a specific legal service the ways you go about it are going to change because competency should always be at the forefront of your mind it's a very fluid area but you should always have the presumption of competency unless you have something to think that that's otherwise we'll talk about that in a little bit so as I said your role does not change actually really most of what you're doing will not change so you may be wondering why does this look like kind of armchair psychology thing well in these cases where there is an underlying mental health condition the more common conditions are going to run across are depression anxiety obsessive compulsive they're going to have organizational issues and they're going to be particularly fragile in terms of emotional states for the most part some conditions may not have the emotional aspect but being aware of the emotional aspects of these clients is really important because I would imagine most of you have had clients where they come in and they are emotional and that can only that can actually be heightened when there's a mental health condition as well so actually acknowledging that emotional side of the client and kind of taking on those emotions and allowing that client to vent those to you is actually really important it's going to help you build that client relationship and it'll actually help you get to the facts faster rather than trying to be very point right from the beginning where you might be with a client that doesn't have some of the emotional stuff going on but what you don't want to do you're not the therapist and from the very beginning you want to make very clear in these cases what your role is and you want to have policies wherever you're working that's going to have access to be able to refer people to individuals that maybe need counseling services or have other referral agencies at least have an internal policy of where to send these individuals to because from our office we've had several cases where on one in particular a woman came in for a utility problem utility problem was solved which keeps calling because we are oftentimes as lawyers the first point of contact we're seen as an authority figure and we've helped them once so they think we can solve all their problems so even though you've made it very clear you know this is how I've presented you and maybe you've signed a retainer waiver you need to continually make these kinds of efforts and documentation and having those referrals is probably well the most important thing in dealing with these types of individuals so one of the biggest things I think when you're interviewing or working with a client is don't be afraid to set time limits you can sometimes get wrapped up in the clients narrative because they have a very compelling story and you know you're going to want to have empathy for them you kind of get sucked into that and while it's important to be able to kind of triage those kinds of concerns you still want to keep in mind that you have a viable practice and you have to have specific time limits so don't be afraid to set time limits and be very clear about that and sometimes you are gonna have to be very stern I've had several clients that just you know we have a 30-minute meeting and they're gonna want to chop you all day so you have to be very clear and very organized probably in these cases more than any so some other interview tips as I mentioned kind of tackling that emotional aspect head-on is a lot more poignant but that's also kind of balanced by the fact that there are points when you want to jump in so if the emotion is clouding the entire reason for why they're there to the point where you're not getting anywhere you want to go in with very precise questions so asking them to generally recall their financial situation or generally recall facts is actually gonna make them feel under pressure they're not gonna oftentimes be able to recall that kind of general information and it's gonna affect the accuracy so the more specific you can be with what date was that this did this happen on that's gonna help them kind of get back to where they can start giving you concrete back so understanding the underlying legal issues really important and having a very clear set of facts that you want to get out of them is a point where you want to jump in when the emotion has really overridden the fact-gathering piece of it another big area is using plain language so lawyers in particular are very we have a very specific set of language that we use and they're not always going to be very clear even when we think it's clear kind of having a very specific plain language and explaining what you mean when you say a certain term is particularly important here and a lot of these tips you know are relevant to really any kind of interview but these are just additional helps that you can do as you go along with these clients and everything to keep in mind is as I said capacity is very fluid and the capacity can change throughout the interview so you can have capacity for them to explain the situation and understand that they're there but you could get through the interview and realize that perhaps they don't have the capacity to sign a retainer waiver right there sometimes you may have to send the retainer with them explain what it is give them time to like review it schedule a separate meeting to come back and actually do the retainer agreements you don't want to pressure them into making quick decisions because oftentimes with regular clients and even those that have emotional or psychological underpengings they're just going to agree to whatever you put in front of them I've seen that a lot in practice where you know they're just not along and you really for ethical reasons need to ensure that they're really understanding what it is they're they're deciding and what or what they're agreeing to another big area is you can you always want to have a presumption of competency so we're actually going to move into the competency piece of it so as I've said a couple times it's fluid you always want to be aware of it the main rule is 1.14 and that's under the mono rules Rhode Island tracks that exact same language actually when I looked it up it's the same rule so there's no real difference in that procedures pretty much exactly the same and you really want to kind of make sure that those clients are aware of their rights aware of the decisions they're making and you really want to watch for some red flags so there's a lot more and I actually have a handout that gives you all it's from the sources at the top but it's collaboration with the American Psychological Association and the American Bar Association that assesses those with aging diminished capacity and elderly is what the journal comes out of it's extremely useful I was gonna actually make one on my own but then when I found this I realized I'm not going to be able to produce anything better so as you can see there's a host of areas that you kind of want to watch for when you're dealing with someone that has capacity issues some of the main ones that I see very common they're just things to kind of watch for are if the clients not able to really interact with the lawyer if they're just kind of nodding along they're not really adding anything to the conversation that's an area of capacity if they have someone with them that you know hasn't made clear that they're the guardian or that they are the legal proxy in that case that can be an area where you kind of maybe there's a competency issue if the person with them is doing the primary talking and then another big one is if they're having difficulty recalling I mean some of these are just very generalized they're having difficulty recalling specific facts that could be almost anybody but none of these in of themselves actually indicate you know with the exception of clear delusions would indicate competency issues by themselves like they it's a it's a form where you kind of have to get a feel while you're in practice for how much is this adding up do I really think there's a competency issue and a lot of the forms and scholar articles say that attorneys can actually make the competency evaluation themselves I would actually caution against that I would if I were having policies and practices I if I felt there was a real competency issue yes you made the determination that you feel that they aren't competent to actually you know contract your services or make a specific decision but I would send if you really think that somebody has to take over the case and step in for them that kind of competency decision should be made by a different professional either you know someone that has the degree through the courts or the judge can sometimes also offer those competency evaluations you can do the order so I would really encourage having those kind of where someone else is taking over in place of the individual to have those competency decisions made outside your office and done by the courts or done by a professional I feel it's so much better it saves you time and it saves you from making any ethical errors one other very crucial thing is I didn't want to start a lot on statistics but another cool thing to talk about in Rhode Island is it's very common here in Rhode Island of the 1.1 million residents in Rhode Island 38,000 adults have a mental health illness so very common here and every 15.8 seconds someone passes away from suicide often the result of an underlining mental health condition so in the time it took to do this presentation we lost someone to an untreated mental health condition so representation is really important in these cases. Any questions? When you were talking just that last statistic of the 15.8 seconds is that Rhode Island alone? That's nationally. That's a national statistic. Do you have any tips on if you're sort of unsure your client's mental health condition have you come across or have you done any work at the center in terms of like the best way to approach that with the client I mean it seems very delicate that you don't want to put them on the spot right especially if they're not revealing much. So the few times I've ran across it with the center and particularly with the mental health advocate the best avenue is actually to really sit them down and have an honest conversation with you know are you really like we need there are additional protections that we need that we can do to ensure that you're having your rights met and kind of handling it that way rather than making them feel like you're trying to push them off onto somebody else is the way to handle it when you really think that there's a competency issue you can also kind of confer with other other colleagues that are in the area kind of explain the situation with as much as you're able to would be the two areas I would kind of do it but if you really really feel that there's a competency where they're just not communicating with you then then yeah you would I would order have someone evaluate them just to be sure and documentation I should have mentioned is probably one of the more crucial things in this since you're going to have them calling back on different issues so you want to make sure you're documenting all of that along the way. Thanks Cameron. Take your time. You'll give them a good five minutes so you can play around and see them. Okay cool. One more minute and then if you still need time, just hold on to it. Let's give Molly a little attention. Is it okay if I stand in between here? Wherever you're comfortable. Alright so my name is Molly Ogren and today I'm going to be doing a little bit of a talk about animal regulation.  So I love pets. I'm a pet person. I've had two horses in my lifetime. This is Oh that's Dart, that's Jasper, my former dog, that's Juneau, my former dog. This is not a picture of my actual fish because it was early. He lasted two weeks, didn't work out and then this is our new addition to my new family and this is called Nance. So I'm a pet person. So how many of you love pets, want pets, are all about pets? Exactly. And everybody seems to love them. So why is it that we can have pets and maybe let's talk about exotic pets. How many of you would think it'd be cool to have a monkey in your house or a whale? I mean it's just a large pool right?  So why is it that more often than not that we can have cows, pigs, goats and yet we really can't have tigers and bears online? Why can't we have these? So we had a recent application at DEM recently and this is a public record now that a gentleman applied for an application to host five non-human primates in his backyard in Kingston and he could demonstrate the financial ability and he could demonstrate the space and DEM still said no. Why? Well because they went on the list and you know you don't have immunizations, we don't have proper immunizations, you know you don't have the right veterinary assistance, you don't have the other resources. So that's my topic today. Why state and federal regulations? Limit individuals from owning exotic pets even when they can demonstrate the space and the financial ability. So as an example organism we're gonna go one step farther and we're gonna talk about dinosaurs. I love dinosaurs. Ever since I got into biology and I every chance I get I do a presentation on dinosaurs I'm all about it and with this whole drastic world going on I mean how many of you would really love to have a raptor? Chris Pratt can do it right? Why can't we? So why can't we have dinosaurs? So first let's classify what an exotic animal is and why a dinosaur has classified it as because someone argued that they're not. So if we use Rhode Island as the regulatory measuring stick I have the rules and regulations and I'm just gonna pass one copy around you don't have to rifle through it but I'm gonna read you the relevant portion that Rhode Island defines exotic animals as any vertebrate or invertebrate other than those defined as domestic animals or exempt as exotic animals. So what does that mean? So domestic animals means any animal through an extremely long period of association with humans bred to a degree that their temperament color breeding confirmation or other attributes have turned so different from the exotic version. I compare this a wolf and a dog. A wolf is clearly not temperate enough to be in a backyard. A dog was in mind. Okay so breaking this down to English. Dinosaurs are vertebrates. They have a backbone central period nervous system. They've got more than just a paired ganglion for a brain. Not gonna get too into it. They're not temperate enough to live with humans. I mean more often than not they like to eat us. So and as for color and confirmation we don't know. I wasn't there 250 million years ago. I can't imagine you guys were either. So we don't really know but we can kind of assume that they haven't changed enough to become domestic right. So they're an exotic animal. But then before you get going well there's those exotic animals and exempt exotic animals are defined as reptiles snakes and birds. And I know some of you lawyers are getting really sneaky and being like well they're descendants. Birds and reptiles are descendants of dinosaurs and that doesn't really work out either because they're talking about small birds like small snakes and tees and skinks things to that effect okay. So they're not exempt. They're an exotic animal. Now we've defined it. Let's look at why Jurassic Park is a perfect example of why you need state and federal regulations to regulate exotic animals right. So let's look it back at Jurassic Park 1. Alright you've got John Hammond and he's got all the money. Remember his famous line spare milk spence. And he's got three giant islands off the coast of Costa Rica right. Or something to that effect. He's got the space. So why can't he have them? Well if, so why didn't it work out? So there wasn't adequate regulation of dinosaurs. And the operators, the facilities, the scientific understanding they didn't work out. And the famous quote from Dr. Ian Malcolm is yeah yeah but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could they didn't stop to think of whether they should. Now remember this with your own animals. Remember this with the monkey guy in Kingston. He's he can. He's got the money. He's got the space. Why can't he do it? Should you do it? That's the more important part. So what happened? Dinosaurs got some free lunch. A bit of a jog. You do territory. Raptors learned how to cook. People got hurt. They died. A lot of money was wasted. So you're thinking so what? This is on our island. There wasn't that many people that got hurt. What could go wrong? We live in the United States. But if you remember the lost world part two. There was a dinosaur running through San Diego facing down a child. And you know, let's just go over what happened again. Dinosaurs got some free lunch. A bit of a jog. New territory. Raptors stayed home on the island. People got hurt. They died. A lot of money was wasted. So okay, now all the dinosaurs are back on the island and everything seems to be okay. Then they've got the space. There's no regulation, but there's also no people. So what could go wrong? So you get number three, right? And people decide to do these tours and sightseeing and all we can see it from a distance, but that didn't really work out either, correct? What happened? Dinosaurs got some free lunch. A bit of a jog. New territory. Raptors got possessive about some eggs. They died and a lot of money was wasted. See a theme going on here? So Jurassic World just came out and apparently we still haven't learned a lesson. Now, although they did seem to have a lot more regulation. There's no spoilers coming up, I promise. But and they had the space and they had the money and they had a lot of corporate revenue stream to help out this money. So the money was going to run out. That seems to work out, right? Yeah? Have I convinced you? No. Dinosaurs got some free lunch. A bit of a jog. New territory. Raptors become best friends with Chris Parrot. People died. They got hurt and a lot of money was wasted. So how does this relate to animal regulation? You never stop to think if you should. You only think if you can, right? So we need the regulations that are implemented to ensure people are safe. People around us are safe. Other organisms are safe. Exotic organisms are exotic for that same purpose. They're unpredictable. They're wild. They're something unattainable. Okay? So people do it and things go wrong. We've got Siegfried and Roy, who I don't know if this was relevant over here, but in Vegas there was a huge attack and Roy, who had raised that tiger since he was a baby, attacked him on stage. You have telecoms, the whale drowning his trainer. You have gorillas attacking fences all the time and glass enclosures. You have tiger escapes from San Francisco Zoo that kills a 17 year boy. There's news articles all the time about exotic organisms not reacting to the ecology that they're forced to be put into because they have the space, they have the money. They don't have these unattainable items. Maybe they do have immunizations, but do they have the ecology? Do they have the right atmosphere for an organism? And that's when they start to react. So not only owning exotic organisms may harm people, but it can harm other organisms. There's a new study that just got released that orcas can live up to 40 years in captivity. The new study shows that orcas living in the wild can live up to 80 years in the wild. That's twice what we thought. Tigers become depressed when they're not in enclosed with other tigers. Gorillas attack because they see other people and think that they're in their new territory. So not only is it harming the people, if they remember that these are animals, it's harming them too. Ecology is about the study of places and interactions with organisms. In ecology there's this renowned idea of niches. Casey, you have a niche in your apartment.  This is where I belong and maybe Rhode Island is a bigger niche. You understand what the grocery store is. That's your place. That's where you get food.  You understand that this is where you go home and you've got your apartment. Maybe you travel a little farther away but you know where you can reach out to. Animals have the same thing. So when you take them out of that, let's say transplanting Cameron in the jungle, you're not going to entirely understand how to survive right away and you're going to react unfavorably much like gorillas and tigers and dinosaurs. So regardless amount of money in human space, humans can provide. Some animals need heavy regulation for the safety and common welfare of society. So how does this all play into you guys being lawyers, right? So when you're deciding to have a pet in the future as fancy lawyers or maybe you have a client that says these regulations are correct, I have the money and I have the space. Remember the famous line. You always remember if you can do it but you never think about whether you should do it. So just remember that some pets are not meant to be a pet like dinosaurs and that's okay. Any question? That's a very good question. So if we break this down again, they have the space and the money, the important part about zoos, some zoos yes and some zoos no. Some zoos, they have the facilities, they have the right ability to create the atmosphere and the climate and the ecology for the organism like the San Diego Zoo. I don't know if any of you have been but the San Diego Zoo is phenomenal because they create an entire climate for these organisms. They really make sure that these organisms have enough space. Zoos that act more as a refuge so for organisms that are hurt and might die if they don't get the help that would be okay. They're not treated as pets but in scenarios where you have an exotic zoo where you have giraffes in your backyard like I had a neighbor who had giraffes in their backyard that wasn't okay. The giraffes were in the Sahara and they came to Nevada. That doesn't compare and that's not okay. So there's a fine line between a zoo and a refuge and creating a habitable area for these organisms versus zoos that aren't up to par with immunizations, with caretaking, with backing off as a human in their world. So that's a very good question is there is that fine line between resources availability and all the resources not just space and money versus having them in your backyard. With some of these organisms, maybe that's not necessarily about endangered species but about maybe threatened species, things like that. Isn't there some value to like because when a person has them as a pet or whatever, I mean they're closer to society, people are more likely to see them possibly interact with them or at least be aware of their presence. Doesn't that in a way raise awareness about the need to preserve those populations? Generally speaking, I mean you could argue that like for instance like Coco the gorilla that learns to sign, convey language and stuff, wakes people up to the need to preserve this majestic set of animals and make sure they don't go extinct. I mean isn't there some value in that to maybe having, if people do indeed have the resources to having that sort of thing? There is value to that, definitely. There's value to using organisms and learning their behavioral ecology, their psychological abilities, their emotional abilities. Yes, there's there's value to that but more often than not, and I'm not speaking 100% across the board, that those places create again that facility for those organisms and that they're aware of when to back off and when to allow this organism to actually behave like an organism. What I'm talking about is five primates in a backyard where that's not raising awareness towards their extinction or to their value that's owning them for your own purpose. And it goes down to even smaller organisms. There's a lady in Alaska who has this love of bald eagles. Bald eagles have been in a threatened and endangered species list for years and she just has them and she keeps them in her backyard and they, the state of Alaska keeps fighting her on its head. You need to let them go because she's not harboring them. She's not keeping them for any value to them or to her. She's just keeping them where that's when you run into dangerous situations. That's when you run into harmful situations to the animals. We have to remember as humans, that's great if we use them for our own personal knowledge, we also remember this is a living being. So it's kind of like using another human for their value and their thoughts and what you can learn from that and you wouldn't put them in a cage. It's kind of the same situation. You wouldn't put them in their backyard. So although you raise a good point, we do use Washo is the first gorilla or the first primate to learn sign language and they did. They used him to see if they could teach primates what their capability cognitively is. That's wonderful. But Washo also had an enclosure that was very vast and they, they gave him everything available to him and made sure that he was at home there. When you're working with animals, the slightest change in their ecology, you can tell hair falls out, dietary needs change, behavior changes. It's very quick to it's not it's like taking a three year old out of their play pattern or taking a three year old out of the, the toy store, they don't like it, they're going to react. It's that much more escalated on animal scale. Can you tell me a little more about the regulation in Rhode Island? You said that there was someone who applied for I think it was a permit to have the monkeys. So and you said he demonstrated the space, the money and everything. Now is there sort of like a long checklist of everything you have to meet and then once you meet those, then the permit gets granted or is there some sort of discretion involved with the DM? That's a great question. There is some discretion involved with DM. It can't be arbitrary or capricious much like most agencies involved. But in this rule, the requirements rule five, if you like take a look at it, you can. They do they have a list where you have to have a state veterinary check off, you have to prove that there's immunizations available. The immunizations are in fact effective. And that's a big issue. One of the areas that the primate case was dealing with was rabies. Primates can get rabies, but we don't have an immunization for primates to have rabies shots. So there's those issues. It's a very long list of check off. And then the director will take a look at it and if they decide that this is not in the best fitness for the organism or for the humans or for the the community, then they can also deny it at their discretion as long as it's not arbitrary and capricious, which means unreasonable. I was going to say you said you were from Vegas and your neighbor had an exotic animal in his backyard and I was just wondering is Mike Tyson and his tiger So I was just wondering like do they act does like the DM have like any way of like doing check ups on people that have exotic pets like because I would be wondering about somebody who like gets like a tiger or something and they just go through the motions of like I can show you guys like just to get the permit that like I'll put it in this field but they end up like having some other like cage or something. That's a good question. You guys have great questions. The state veterinarian has to check in on the organism. There's one other part of this that although you can get a permit for an exotic animal and you can be passed through it, you also are held up to another statute or another act called the Animal Care Act. So anything that the state veterinarian feels as though is not up to standard they can report them to DEM. DEM can check up on them. They have an office of compliance for these organisms that they can continue to ensure that the animal is being treated nicely and fairly and in the proper way. Is there insurance minimums for like if you're I mean you must have to have like a ton of insurance to like yeah right? I'm not sure about insurance. I'm not sure how that works but I can only assume. I want to try it in my back. You don't call it Deico. I want to try it in my back. That's the video I'm following. Thank you. You're welcome. You dropped it. I got you the hangover key. You probably start about today. I know what I was just saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to take your time doing that. You're not going to miss those. We have a microphone for you. You're going to need to take a lucky life day. You do a good presentation on client confidentiality because I know you're going to keep my secret. Was yours? Yeah. That's fine. That's okay? Okay. I felt okay but like really fast. Really?  Two things before I start. I apologize for my voice and if you can't hear me I will try my best to speak up. And second I've envisioned this as a continuing legal education program for lawyers who work in public interest who are sort of familiar with issues that clients face, sort of a training program for younger lawyers who may be just getting into this field. So you have a little bit of background before I start. So good evening everyone. My name is Casey. Thank you for all joining me today. I want to start by telling you a story about client I met a few weeks ago. And all names if I use are not the names of real clients. I've made them all up. So this client's name is Emily. And Emily is a great woman but she's having some issues with her house. It's being condemned by the city of Providence for while lists of issues including there's no running water. She doesn't have a staircase. She can safely use to access her third floor apartment. There are rats, roaches, and a list of other bugs I do not want to name for you. But I went to her house with my supervisor in order to really assess what this client needs and what was actually going out there home. I thought about that house for quite some time and it's really stuck with me.  The windows in this house were being held together by towels that were stapled to the wall. I could reach my hand through the window and reach the outside. There's no working screen on any of the windows. On the outside of the house, there are discarded windows. I'm assuming that had been replaced. Just laying on the ground. This is the children that live in the house's backyard and play space. There's broken glass everywhere and the tenants have tried their best to clean it up but unfortunately their efforts are just not enough. The house, like I said, does not have running water. They get water from the store to bathe with, to cook with. It's a really desperate situation that these people are in. And that's just a sample of the clients who come into the Medical Eagle Partnership at Hasbro Children's Hospital. And I just wanted to set that up for you but I don't want this to be a depressing topic. So I decided that since you sat through that story I was going to treat you to a trip to the Bahamas. So the Medical Eagle Partnership is the only one in the state of Rhode Island and it began in 2012. We service a host of issues for our clients and we're often their first contact with the legal system or their first, I'll call it, positive contact with the legal system. And today I wanted to tell you why I think a Medical Eagle Partnership is like a five-star hotel in the Bahamas. First, I believe Medical Eagle Partnership deals with a lot of housing issues like I told you about Emily's case. It's a lot of housing issues for people in the city of Providence, Central Falls, Pawtucket, all over the state of Rhode Island. And the work includes trying to get them on Rhode Island housing so they can have safe and affordable housing. A lot of these clients are extremely low income, relying on oftentimes their child's SSI payments, unemployment payments. Unemployment payments of their significant other to make ends meet and finding reliable and affordable housing is often very difficult for them. But the Medical Eagle Partnership really helps navigate through these often difficult experiences for clients who maybe are not experienced talking to people on the phone. Inclusion is not their first language so it really helps break down the barrier that can be very difficult and try and process. The Medical Eagle Partnership also holds landlords responsible like in Emily's case for violations that have been outstanding on the home often for years. They try to really hold landlords accountable for things that the city has ordered that they fix to make sure they're fixed and that they're fixed properly. So for Emily's case, the city of Providence decided to unfortunately condemn the home, but in other cases, we've really forced landlords to fix their problems in a timely and extremely safe fashion. I also think that housekeeping is important. Like I saw in Emily's home, she had a lot of pest problems. This is something that unfortunately a lot of clients at the Medical Eagle Partnership deal with, but it's something that I think Jeanine, my supervisor has navigated through very successfully. There are a list of exterminators in Providence. I'm just talking about Providence gently because that's where the most other clients live who will do exterminations for a low cost or even sometimes for free because of the client's need, which is great, and I know that another client that I met, her name is Crystal, her house was infested with bed bugs and her children were rushed to the emergency room due to all the bed bug bites that they had on their body and the exterminator came to the house. I believe it's a host of three treatments. They do the first time and the bed bug problem has subsided for now, at least so it's been a positive experience. And like I said before, the Medical Eagle Partnership helps keep landlords accountable and often will involve city officials and building code inspectors to really hold these landlords accountable for their apartments that they rent out to the public. And my favorite food. This is a big problem for clients who are extremely low income and often don't know how to navigate the benefit system that's here in Rhode Island. Personally, during my time at the Medical Eagle Partnership, I have called several food shelters, regular shelters for emergency housing to get these clients food. Something very simple that I know I don't think about and I'm sure a lot of you don't think about, but this is a day-to-day thing for a lot of the clients here. And I think that benefits also include navigating their SSI and SSDI payments. So SSI is for low income individuals and SSDI is for workers who are disabled. Not necessarily to an on-job accident, but it's a worker-related program.  And most importantly, medical care. It's in the name. It's one of the main things that we focus on. And there's a list of diseases and illnesses that I have been dealing with in my, I think, six or seven weeks now at the Medical Legal Partnership. And some of the interesting ones that I've researched are sickle cell anemia. Sorry, there's one client who just came in the other day with some GI issues that her daughter has and even also some psychiatric and emotional issues that clients have. And I think the Medical Legal Partnership really is good at navigating medical illnesses very respectfully, but with the knowledge and research behind them to get clients the best possible care that they need, whether it's referring them to a psychiatrist who maybe has low-cost appointments or a referral within the hospital where they're also normally Medicaid will cover them if they're under the lifespan, which is the company that Hasbro is located under. There will normally be low-cost services for these clients as well. And with health issues, this is where the majority of the legal issues are. So the Medical Legal Partnership often goes through SSI benefits in the whole case, which can sometimes take years to receive benefits for. But I think it's very important that a lawyer navigate that because I know if I was an uneducated, oftentimes unsophisticated client, I would not feel comfortable calling the Social Security Office in Providence because they give me a hard time and I'm supposed to be an intern. So they even give me a hard time. Also, we handle a lot of guardianship cases for adult and minor children. And I will say that the judges at the Providence probate court are some of the best that I've seen. They really understand the model that the Medical Legal Partnership operates under, which is a holistic approach to legal care. And I think the judges there are great. They really understand the medical issues themselves. And I've even had a judge ask me personally as the intern about sort of what was going on with this client's medical history. So that was really great, too. And lastly, the Medical Legal Partnership is about comfort. Janine and I have done several home visits. Most of them have been better than the situation we faced with Emily to make sure that the clients are comfortable. A lot of the clients have some transportation problems, so it's really easiest for them to meet them at their home. And that's what it's all about. It's about comfort for them. The office is a completely safe space and clients really feel that they can share everything in the kitchen sink while in our office. And I think that's something that's very important in building a relationship and trust with your client. Also, at the hospital itself, there are certain rooms that children can go in. I know that clients often have bring their children with them because they don't have access to daycare. But there's, you know, a couple libraries and empty rooms that the children can play in with access to toys and as well. Whenever we do home visits, we make sure to bring coloring books and little toys for the kids. Truly make sure that they're comfortable as well during the meeting that Jameen has with their parents. So I'm giving you guys some souvenirs. I'm from our trip to the Bucca. I wanted to take away from this that the Medical Legal Partnership uses legal tools to fix social and health problems that the clients face. It's a more holistic approach to legal issues that I don't think other law firms have. And I really think that's because there's only one attorney and she has complete autonomy on how it runs, how the process works. And she can really dictate how to best serve her clients. And I found that it's very successful. And I think the clients have as well. First, I just wanted to say thank you. I just wanted to say I think you did a great job in spite of your voice. Thank you. My question. I have two questions, but I'll do one first. You had mentioned about exterminators who would go up to the houses and either provide the service at a discount or for free. Now, are there a pool of exterminators that you guys draw from that you've had experience from or did you reach out to them or did they come to you? I'm not actually sure how it works. I know a couple of them have been referrals from within the hospital. So there have been relatives who may have worked at the hospital. But I know that that's been an outreach to this happen. I honestly think it's just been a passing of people's business cards or I know someone. And I think that once that initial contact is made with the exterminators, it sort of just opens the door to getting the services. But I don't always think it's a we don't always go to them. I've only ever called one exterminator myself to see if they would perform the service for free but that was because that was in Patucket and not all the exterminators and Providence, excuse me, will make the trek. It's not even that far but they're just they don't want to go. So that was the only real instance of that but I think it's been working on the network who will reach different places. You seem to do a lot of different work whether it be getting the services outside of the legal realm that people need or the guardianships or SSI payments. What do you think your experience is the most fulfilling and most in demand work I guess you could say? I think it's actually a mix of both. I think a lot of clients who come in who have sick children either need a guardianship or a power of attorney they often need a very sometimes simple and easy legal process that can be done normally rather quickly but I think a lot of clients often come in without a legal problem just because they need help and they don't know where else to go and I know that if the client is who has a child who is either a patient of Hasbro or themselves is a patient of Rhode Island hospital or something else, another hospital in the lifespan community they're often given Janine's business card not even knowing she's an attorney just because they know she has resources and will do her best to meet whatever needs the client has so I really think it honestly depends on what walks through the door that day. The partnership do any follow-up so when you get to the very end in Emily's case the condemnation and I'm assuming you're helping her find an apartment does that affect is there any later follow-up to ensure that they're not letting the stuff make into them? I joke with Janine because I almost feel like representation once you've been a client you're never not a client I often find that when they may have a current file but then I go back into the archives and they have numerous stacks so I don't think representation really often ever ends for a lot of clients but for other clients it does but I think Janine is very good about following up with people whether it be a quick email or just a voice mail just to let them know that she's still there as a resource if they do need anything but I really think for some clients it's a verb off they never leave For something as extreme as that example you opened with is there not any kind of criminal charges that are available for that sort of mismanagement and if so do you ever refer to these cases to the local prosecutors? I get referred out it's not really normally a criminal problem we don't deal with a lot of criminal cases and if we do that's immediately referred out just because the office does not have the resources to handle an extensive criminal proceeding like that I'm sorry maybe I've missed one I guess what I'm saying is that that it's so egregious the sort of conditions you're talking about I would think that there might be it depends on the state and things like that would you ever call up the prosecutors and tell them you should take a look at this that wouldn't affect your ability to help your client no in the research I've done I believe they're all civil clients that doesn't happen it's not that great I get to say it's more common than you think I've seen like you go in your bathroom and it's really not they do this office here would never say you could get tense, do a rent strike in different ways but not criminal it's a good point in terms of thinking about the big picture it's totally crazy that there aren't criminal charges sick and I've even seen I haven't been to another house that was in that state but I've seen photos of houses that were worse where Janine did not even walk in the door because she just felt that she cannot safely enter the home so it happens quite often and I know right now Janine is working with two other private attorneys in order to represent these clients and hopefully a civil lawsuit against their landlord it's just oftentimes it does need to be referred out because the office is a very small non-profit and there's often not resources to to engage in a big civil lawsuit like that with just one attorney and a couple interns I have two questions, one really quick is your name spelled with a C or a K? With a K That's up Unnecessarily I had to speak more because of my colleague but anyway real question so you already kind of set this to Don that you refer cases out because I was wondering like if you had a conflict with like the public defenders or legal services like there was a claim to a case over you guys Not that I found or have ever heard of I know that most of the cases we get are patients at the hospital so they've often either never dealt with the public defender's office or reliant on legal services and if they have it's in a completely different capacity we often don't deal with any criminal cases so that's in the background that's in the background like in terms of like family situations I guess with like if the kids were getting taken away I know there's installment yeah there is we're in contact with DCYF but I don't know that there's ever been a conflict with any other working at least in my in my community so criminal things aside because it sounds like there's criminal or big civil stuff that gets triaged out screening process because as you say very limited resources and this is a very common issue more than I think any of us really realize is there like a cut off point where or do you take everyone that comes in the door that has XYZ it really depends so I'll give you this same example so right now we are working on for education assessment cases are often very big paperwork in a lot of time and I know that Janine cannot take more than one education case without interns there just because she cannot handle the paperwork on her own so if it's maxed out unfortunately even if they meet the criteria for representation at the program they're unfortunately needing to be referred out but I know that excuse me if it's a situation like that Janine will try to find an attorney who will handle their case for free or an extremely low cost if the client is able to pay something so it just really depends on what the client's need is and what we're already working on for. How much you just said as for referrals how receptive are attorneys in the area to be helping out? I find that they're very receptive I've called a few of them and I think a lot of them are Roger Williams alums who know Janine or have been in contact with the Medical League of Partnership in some way so I find that most of the ones who I've met or spoken to are pretty receptive I mean I know that I know that a lot of them work in public interest or are in private practice so I think they're willing and able to take cases some of them aren't very expensive so it's kind of piggyback so for Molly's question but how long for somebody living in a property like that or with the bed bugs how long does it take I mean I think every case would be different but generally like I really agree in this case how long does it take to help make the client like close to whole again where you get their remedies and like are there programs that cover like bed bug issues where you know they're obviously already in a difficult situation you know so that kind of expense is like it's going to hit them hard to other programs where they're there are by all the time their funding is maxed out so I know that there are supposed to be programs to provide assistance to provide housing but often they're I know right now they're all full I call every day so I think there are supposed to be programs like that and I know that at Hasbro there's a program called Health Leads who is in contact with a lot of you know the Catholic Diocese they're in contact with a lot of these programs but I just think that there are so many people who need the services that even the services that are out there to meet the need of you know the state as a whole so I think there are programs but they're just not they're just maxed and at that point it's like what do you how do you help someone how do you tell someone that they're that the shelter is full and that they're going to be homeless how do you tell someone that so that's my point good job thank you for seeing it we got the water we just got home I'm glad I didn't die who my dad was who's that I was like I saw him they're all here what's that oh I was in that gym in that gym yeah thank you from like the office email and I don't know yes you can but when did you get them done June or you might not be able to because the cutoff for financial aid is July 1st that's the new year that switches over for the award year so if you don't get your reimbursement in before June or July 1st you can't because they're working off a different award so basically reimbursement is that I think so I don't know I don't know I don't know I love to be taken into deferment so now I have $600 to reload how many years because someone thought that I was a third year that just graduated and they reported me to the mail they reported you no they reported me to the clearing house they're like national clearing houses you just correct them well I'm working with them but they won't clarify it so they didn't log in so I'm working with my loan company to say that no I'm still in school so I call financial aid and they're like oh we can't help you we work with the undergrads you don't even know if we do a deferment no that's what I'm saying you should remember you know Dean because there's you know like Harpershaw left they need to be sort of alerted it's not working right undergrads are just taking over temporarily and she thought that I was an incoming student she's like a brand new one now so she's like oh we don't differ I'm sorry I'm having trouble you're getting big badgered by Navian saying hey me did you get that in the maze no they just started calling me that's when I looked into it you gotta be like quick because if not then if you don't pay then you can get a negative amount of credit I mean you don't want that I know you'd say alright well I'm not right but let's pretend I was let's pretend I can't find a job okay that's good oh I have Mary Kay yeah I thought you were going to do something about that yeah that sounds fine okay we're going to get down to your full attention go for it so this is what we're all working towards right now right this is you know I'd like everyone to take the time and think about what you're putting into your jobs and think about your memories growing up at home with your families and family events and things like that alright now I'm going to tell you a story about somebody who also thinks a lot about that and what they have to go through when they face hard times alright Charles Pallidore worked on Wall Street not as a trader but he was an IT he was an IT technician he had a good job he had a good career going he had family everything he wanted he had a good mortgage he was current on his payments he was current on all his utilities everything was growing very well and then he got laid off in the housing crisis he kept paying his monthly mortgage payments and looking for new jobs but not much was out there the market was very thin even to his other funds his other funds such as 401K emergency finances whatever else they had lying around that's what they dipped into eventually he had to get on welfare and here's why he had diabetes and he had a very poor health condition he was also legally blind and monod so he had to make sure that he was self-care and make sure that he was still marketable to these companies and was still taking care of himself because he had a family and all in the meantime what he's doing is he's applying to his bank for a loan modification which is an option you have when you're into fall so he's been making his payments and dipping into all his funds but what he had to do was apply for this modification because he couldn't afford his payments anymore so the thing he had saved up was slowly depleting and almost gone in the meantime his health had very much been deteriorating and on top of that he's dealing with these banks so while applying for his loan modification he's calling the banks he's not getting through to anyone he's submitting letters stating that he has hardship he's submitting his bank statements he's submitting his SSDI disability statements and when you finally get somebody on the phone you know what they tell him? we don't have anything, what are you talking about? imagine how that hits you going through life like this working hard finding success still dealing with personal issues on the side being able to put that off and then slowly go out and go really bad and while you're still trying to do the right things we don't have what you've been sending what are you talking about? eventually he lost his home this is where he's dealing with now he has nowhere to go no funds, no nothing he's very lucky to have family but it's not it's a small house and family gets congested other people go through hard times and you can't always stay there very long so this is kind of what happens when people with the housing crisis going through the housing crisis and it affects people in lots of different ways and so what happens is what are the policy concerns for such a thing well in Rhode Island one of the major issues is what are the walls that surround bankruptcy and how do they affect everything so we're going to get into that a little later but right now I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what's been going on with the Rhode Island economy for the past couple of years Rhode Island right now has been hit as one of the first in the country with an unemployment rate that's very high first in New England and sixth in the nation with a very high unemployment rate and so when people have inherited their own homes from parents or grandparents and then they don't have anywhere to work it's very difficult when you want to go to apply for loan modification and they ask for your income and you have to put down zero this has impacted Rhode Island in many ways not just with the unemployment rate but it's had an effect on the housing market with housing prices most housing prices that people haven't been able to maintain their homes and so the value drops and when the value drops it's because it's in poor condition everyone has an agreement with their insurance company where you have to maintain your home in order to keep your coverage well not everyone can do that in such a situation and this has impacted the economy because it's fostered higher prices with lower availability when foreclosures go through and these buildings need to be condemned because they're not livable and there's not the funds to bring them back to a livable condition there's fewer availability for these things and the demand goes up for more people who need housing which really fosters higher prices and can cause a huge problem for people who are trying to get housing you know just find some place to stay temporarily in between 2012 between 2009 and 2014 there was an estimated 11,000 foreclosures in Rhode Island and that's a very very high rate and Rhode Island has been known as one of the states has been hit the hardest by this crisis and you know the closure prevention project at Rio's and I have to tell you that from seeing what clients deal with when they come in and doing research on this project Rhode Island has really done it's done a good job with what it's had because slowly foreclosure the amount of foreclosures have dropped they're still very high but they're going down and Rhode Island has made an issue and made some significant changes so what are the factors that have affected the housing crisis well Rhode Island has been hit hardest by the unemployment rate that's one factor and so obviously with very limited income coming in it's typical to make these expenses and you know and the mortgage prices are designed but the mortgage payments escalate as the learn moves forward so there's not really a way to reduce that so the only way to attack that is to get people employed keep jobs going and so this has been one of the big challenges in Rhode Island in 2011 like I said they've attacked it and it's started to work as anything is and that's very understandable but in 2011 there was an estimated 1685 mortgages and then slowly it started to go down to 2014 but it still happens at a very high rate the first quarter of 2015 was an estimated or not estimated a reported 398 foreclosures you figure within four months that's a lot and that can still go up to a thousand and that can double or triple or anything and cause that to escalate with one small mistake another factor combined with this is that still bad loans are going through because people have been living in their homes for 20, 30 years some of them or have been already new homes and the loans from the housing crisis are still going through that system so you know when banks would transfer loans to other banks they wouldn't you know take a category and say this is a good one I'll give you this one you give me a better one all these loans are grouped into one big system with the MERS system and so they just really flow in big general groups and so these get lost and so they're still filtering through the system another factor, a third factor that fosters foreclosures and makes it so high is the laws surrounding foreclosures fosters a very quick process and there's several reasons for that one of the reasons for this is that the bankruptcy courts don't have much teeth to make banks do things banks have discretion and they have great lobbyists and they have received you know these millions and billions of dollars for bailouts trying to find where the money should go and where putting it in the right spots has obviously been a challenge but the laws definitely favor the banks over the individual so one of the big laws that has been being pushed for recently in Rhode Island was a mandatory mediation conference which required basically the law originally stated that for a mediation conference to occur the loan must be in default for at most 120 days so basically 4 months when this occurs the default occurs the banks must send a notice to the mortgage holder saying we can't foreclose on your home until we sit down and talk well this talk is obviously in fact it's a good faith effort to sit down and hash things out and find a solution but because so many of these can occur in large groups one of the balancing policies is finding an economic fix to this and that's not an easy thing in a systemic approach to things with the mediation conference you have a process where you receive notices and that's a lot of what bankruptcy court is about you have a right to do process and not have your property and your liberty taken from you without adequate notice so that's a big reason for the mediation conference and the laws for a notice of default you know you have to you can't just send one notice and then you know if somebody has a big surprise you have to send one notice and what happens with the mediation conference is that both parties have to sit down and use a good faith effort to sit down and find a solution and take in mediating factors into account and see if there is a solution but part of the issue with this has been lobbying with the banks is they found ways around this and it's hard to say it that way looking at this you have such a massive amount of money that support the economy and so what do you do do you put an individuals right ahead of you know a massive multi-billion dollar corporation no yes and no in 2013 Judge McConnell issued a stay because there were so many reports about bad faith dealings with the banks they weren't listening to people submitting loans and then another issue with that was there's this MRS system a mortgage electronic recording system where usually you have to record a default with the county recording office with the MRS system if they're nominated if they're indicated by the banks as a nominee then they don't have to record it that that system is sufficient and there have been recent cases finding that the mortgage isn't sufficient the mortgage didn't sufficiently nominate the MRS system but what happens is for people like Mr. Paliwur who are going through things like this it's hard to find out who to contact some of these mortgages are constantly flowing through the system and you don't know who to contact the reason why people don't get these phone calls back is maybe they might be contacting one person or there are mistakes in the system some of the mistakes with the MRS system have been that the the notes are not always recorded it's a huge huge system um the note is assigned but not the mortgage and banks have said that's not sufficient to make MRS assignment proper because MRS has been foreclosing on a lot of these places and people will challenge that and say they can't foreclose because they're not my bank and that's who I've been dealing with another issue with the MRS system has been that the mortgage is assigned to a non member who is not the mortgage the mortgage lender and so these problems cause people to you know get a hold of the bank for a long time and by then you know things have just snowballed into a huge huge problem so what are the solutions to this well obviously the push has been for more mediation but recently locally owned banks have been exempted from that this tends to be more to apply to other state banks and in state banks they still have to do all the process and show that but they can still do that in a quick manner and get people through the system which has been one of the major complaints by many lawyers advocating for the mediation conference to apply to everyone another thing is more funding for government programs to help people who are going through this and then the third one is more funding for housing programs because the demand is going up but the needs aren't being met thank you and does anybody have any questions? I'm interested about the mediation solution you said that it was something that's being pushed trying to be pushed through the legislature it's been a major issue for the past several years yeah very major so my question is who pays for the mediation to responsibility payment for the mediator beyond the bank or is it going to be state funded? it's not so clear I think it's more of an expense that the bank takes on you know I worked in insurance before you I think major corporations should be expected to build those expenses in and be able to handle those I think that the banks take on that expense but what happens is they nominate an impartial party you know I think there's a designated field for it they're called more mediation conference coordinators so I think that they come in and they charge a fan I don't know I think it may be split or it might depend on the agreement some people who go through a foreclosure we have a client now who has fallen on hard times but they make a very good salary and so it's difficult because they're trying to get caught up but that's the issue they felt like for $18,000 behind and so finding a solution when there's a high salary the mortgage isn't the bank isn't going to budge on the mortgage and this person needs to account for that and so you know a mortgage that was you know $3,000 a month now goes up to $3,800 or $4,200 a month to get caught up and so you know to answer your question mediation conference as you probably funded by the banks but it's a big expense but it's one that should definitely be accounted for if you file bankruptcy and you're like $18,000 behind like you can't cram it down sorry I took bankruptcy you can't cram it down like you would no but you can, they will if you're being $18,000 behind they can roll that back into the rest of your right? they extend out the loan further they add on to the years but what happens is some of these banks don't want to they don't want to do that you have this massive contract for like $400,000 or $250,000 for some people or whatever the amount is and the crisis hits and some of these home values drop and the banks want their money that's the end result is they want to get their money back and they don't really care about not all of them but there are people out there who handle this and they don't really think about the bigger picture that they could make it back they want to get it and they want to get it now and then also I'm going to ask I don't remember what's the system of state exemptions like because when you declare bankruptcy you need to use federal exemptions which are crap in most cases or you can also use state exemptions and the thing that most people know about usually is that the homestead exemptions so you can protect a certain amount of equity in your home when you file bankruptcy most famously like Florida has an unlimited one but is the one around the high end state legislature and like that to push a more consumer friendly thing where people can protect more of the equity in the home I'm not sure I'm answering your question the right way I think I am but the state exemptions like the mediation conference the mediation conference is not required for state based banks in Rhode Island so it's Fannie Mae or not exempt if it's not your primary residence then there is no mediation conference required at all they don't have to follow that procedure they can just move on to the next step it really deals with primary residence and that's where the due process issue comes in but from our experience with the lack of availability of apartments it still is a due process issue because not enough availability and there's a higher demand one of the recently new things going on now is a housing lottery you know you have to record your name by email with a housing system and then they will call you so that's how they get it or they'll email you but it's difficult because even though that the housing the people the numbers are growing and with the housing availability of apartments shrinking that's one of the major issues going on any other questions? I just thought I had one it's kind of combining both of those so we have mediation solution funding this is where is there proposals for where that's coming from proposals or just I know it's difficult to find the funding right now people propose a lot Peter Kilmorton has been making proposals and they haven't exactly gone through a lot of the bills that have been recently not a lot but some of the bills for funding have been killed through the senate and their hunger from what I've been reading about them lack of availability for funding where to direct that to has been one of the major issues we've got to hand it off you all did a great job they were very interesting their lives so finish up the critiques and again if you don't have time to finish them just send them scan them in send them to me if you presented last week or this week and you haven't given me the mooting feedback sheet of someone who watched you before I need that the effectiveness of who like their commentator the rumor tells you there should be some when I look at the moot feedback sheet and your presentation there should be some correlation between adjusting if I can't see it okay because getting her to elaborate we just wanted to try to do that because I found that she was like great job I'm like no I need more she didn't like have her critique I know you felt bad I don't want to see you do something yeah I had to send down one just to give me more other than that okay great okay so feel free to keep writing or you can wait I'm going to just move ahead so you can get out of here in terms of TED talk again I'll repeat I need yourself critique so if you didn't hand in like Don I don't know if you sent me your self critique you didn't I need your self critique and I need that mooting feedback sheet before I give you your mic as well as your peer critiques I'll scan them all and you'll get a packet of critiques so that's the TED talk next week our last class I know please bring a copy of the good lawyer that's tattered with notes bring a copy of the book with you I'm going to give you back my feedback on reflection three and five that should be the last in terms of my feedback I think I had somehow forgotten to give you three so I'm going to give you three three and five tonight and you'll see little no cards on the top I want each of you to write either two questions or sort of topics the beginning of next week's class I'm going to give you a little spoiler and sort of connections that you found with your summer this with your externship this summer or maybe sort of broader things that resonated anything you want from the book think of it as sort of like a book group discussion so you get two no cards and each no card either a question or like a topic and to the extent you have a page number or a quote better yet but just think if I pull your card out it's got to be something that or bring it to class I'll put them in my magic hat and that'll help us start the discussion I'll bring pizza next week pizza party pizza party so that's next week I said bring copies of your resume next week but actually I was thinking this over while you guys got great ice cream send me a copy you can do two things if you really want to practice or you want to like put this summer's experience right on your resume just send me your resume that would be just electronically send me your resume if you feel like your whole resume isn't quite where you want it to be and you don't want to be looking at it that's fine do the blurb for this summer because what I think I'll do is put all of your blurbs on one sheet of paper and I found that students really appreciate this it's like one of those things that like it's easier to do it now than to like wait until you need to update your resume in October so we'll all sort of help each other look at that new blurb does that make sense so you can either send me the text in an email it's fine like just in the body of the email or send me your resume I don't care but I will take it and I'm going to put it onto one document we're all going to sort of help each other make that blurb sound the best that they can so let me sort of the second half of the class make sense obviously you should be finishing the book if you haven't already starting to think about the paper you weren't here last week but I told everyone to do Saturday it's not due next Wednesday Saturday at 11.59 you can't do any confusion about midnight at 11.00 am resume questions I think that's it and then in terms of just bridges and making sure everyone's up to date on assignments Jesse, Don, and Obie the only people I just want to quickly just make it's boring it's like not bad just want to make sure that they're stuff uploaded everyone else you're free you're dismissed hey be careful the flash drive Obie the only thing you're missing is the final the final just upload it just so that I have whatever you gave for supervisor whatever you sent to Susan just make sure when you go to bridges the final folder does not have anything attached to it mid semester the meeting you guys just need to make sure like the back and forth same thing for you the final the value of your stuff isn't in that folder it's not just a big deal I just like you I really I also need actually one of these is I did do so when I went right out to the park my car was so messy though I had to make a line for it so I threw all my crap on it so it's hard and now I don't really know so you guys now know I'm going to email you about the tax yes that'd be great good can you repeat the assignment with the questions yes so wait don't leave I didn't give you your feedback that's yours where is that Casey and mom there we go there you go okay Stefano scream for that camera we filled the cards next week next week bring it to class we'll put it around you end of my page numbers where did you say about bringing questions so something about it was like a good quote or something that you related to your job like a page number that you found really that's going to like generate discussion like something that you really took from the book so we're supposed to generate a good question or something that we got out of the book that you related to like the class could so I found on page 429 this quote really resonated with me let's chat, discuss so only thing I'm missing I'm missing your meeting I got that email I'm sorry it is Friday or Saturday I'm like we just got to get this bring it up to me so that I can give you your evaluation beautiful all of mine are in one nicely part of it why aren't you it's kind of the TED talk is kind of hard for other reasons at least when your audience is lawyers you're trying my whole readiness I was trying not to focus on offending offending? well I know like Stefano works in the legislature I know like it's important I know a lot of people who are like you can't do this to the homeowner and I agree with that and then there's others where it's you can't also overlook a contract and so finding that middle I don't want to like paint the banks well you should presentation like this you have the liberty to have you can go build a road you have to make a decision how you want to present you also think like if you are really working at rills and you're doing a presentation you have to that's why I emphasize who is your audience and really tailoring the talk there may be cool reasons to make yourself really left or there may be reasons to go the other way or go to the little road I think what I was worried about like I didn't know if anyone was family working in the banks you can't be worried about all that my topic was mental the best part is if you just say it what the hell you think you get a lot of Q&A I think that's right


My name is Joe Brennan and I'm director of studies and a teacher in whatever the English language centres. Fantastic. So just to kick off Joe, the first question is what challenges has the pandemic posed in your school or in your classroom? Well I suppose they're changing all the time but they're ever evolving challenges but to go back I suppose to the very beginning from March when everything closed down. Initially we found like our issue was I suppose a lack of knowing what was happening next and what to do. So we kind of tried to deal with what was immediately in front of us and essentially the first few weeks obviously was supporting the learners that we had here. The initial week was dealing with really sending people home and getting people home and dealing with various requests for deferrals and refunds etc. But once we got anybody who wanted to go home, especially I'm thinking of junior students, we really looked at the adult student cohort that were left here and there weren't many of them but it was very time consuming because suddenly we were dealing with the whole learner experience. Like I would live in a classroom if I had a choice, that's my little bubble, my safe space but outside that there's so many things that impact on students learning experience in Ireland and it just brought them all to the fore. So like people were losing jobs, people like problems with rent and accommodation didn't know how to get home, worries about family and it just suddenly there was a holistic student that needed support and there was a lot of stuff that we really had no control over and couldn't do very much about. But we did make ourselves available to listen and try and be supportive in that way. And as initially as well, we very early made a decision to try and stay in contact with the students as much as possible. And even when we weren't quite sure how we were going to do that but we worked through it and what's up was like for the initial couple of days when everything was up in the air. But we did the day after we were asked closed on March 13 I think we did just make contact with all the students and try and put together an element of a study plan so that it would be working for the first couple of weeks until we decided what we're going to put in place. As the time went on then and it was clear this wasn't going to be a short term thing and really had to look us right we have these students to whom we have promised a course and the delivery of that course now has to be completely different because we can't deliver in the way it was promised. So we, we went on zoom and thankfully we already had a learning management system in place which was a God sent so a lot of our materials were up there already. And they were even more importantly the students were used to using it because trying to like it just trying to get students to use technology by teaching them how to use it using technology is just an added layer of of complication. So we were very lucky in that regard. And, and most of this is engaged very well. I mean it was a huge learning curve for everybody. And, and obviously so many things are going on outside the classroom that sort of the classroom was what was happening inside the classroom was not so important for some of the students. But gradually, like we didn't start off and go back in 15 hours we started with a couple of hours a week and then kind of it went to 10 hours a week I think online and then I think it was nearly was the end of April before we kind of got back to full 15 hours delivery online. So that was one element so there was the students but then of course it was all the staff that we need to support the students and they're all going through the unknown, the unknown as well and what's happening next. And normally, before the pandemic we usually only communicated information when we had information to communicate and I think during pandemic, it was really important that we just communicate that we like, we kept in regular contact and said, we don't know what's going to happen next. We really, this is what we're doing now. This is what we hope to do. But in terms of when are we all going to be sitting down together in the staff room or in the classroom we just have no answers for that and we became kind of used to that communicating ambiguity and just the feedback from staff and teachers just to have even a weekly newsletter or just the feedback was hugely positive and I mean it was really important for us as well just to connect. And we also started very early on, it was a huge craze for pub quizzes that kind of petered out very suddenly as well but so we got on that bandwagon and we kind of had, we did a whole school pub quiz about once every two weeks and like some people were there some people weren't but it was just great to see everybody in a casual fistily competitive atmosphere but it was an important part of connecting with everybody and just make sure everybody was okay. And I think the third major challenge right from the very beginning and I don't think it's really being sorted out just yet is really a lack of clarity and direction from regulatory bodies and people, students and staff and people who are inquiring about the future, asking questions that we just can't seem to get the answer to and it's very frustrating and it makes it very difficult for planning as we go forward. In terms of the classroom situation then that was a whole different challenge. And I suppose just from a personal perspective and from the kind of philosophy we have teaching in the school where connection is so important we're a very small school and we try and really make, provide an environment where students feel safe and they feel comfortable making mistakes and it's very welcoming environment and to sort of lose that connection because zoom is fantastic but at the best of times, everybody's in their own individual bubble and each individual bubble is connected to the other bubbles, whereas in the classroom everybody is in the same bubble, and there's sort of cross pollination of ideas and possibly the most important thing is more than one person can speak at a time. So the issue with zoom is that as soon as one person speaks it cuts everybody else off even though it's very very quick and very clever, but so we missed that, we missed that connection that we were very lucky in a certain way that a lot of students who were made with us throughout the pandemic had met their teachers beforehand and so the rapport was already built up, but I do think that in terms of going forward when we were continuing to use technology as inevitably we will, that time, more time needs to be dedicated to rapport building and helping students feel that the classroom is their classroom and that it's their space to learning and I think that takes longer online. Obviously, second issue, it was just the technology, getting used to using the technology, well first of all learning how to use the technology and like fantastic, like very quick off the mark, organizations like Equals and Nile, they had online courses that we could access and learn what other people were doing and I think everybody was sort of learning on the hoof, and it was quite an exciting time for ideas, ideas like from a theoretical standpoint, if we weren't all just running as fast as we could to keep up, so it was great to have access to them and to be able to share that information and that it was freely accessible to all the staff and teachers, but then the other side was, of course, the reliability of the technology and the hardware and the Wi-Fi that students needed to consistently check in and that was always an issue. I remember there was one student who was kind of coming to lessons under mobile phone from a kind of in a corner of a shed of some sort of garden center where they were working, that was where the job was in the Wiles at Wexford, and that was the only place in the whole area of the garden center that they could get Wi-Fi, so not an ideal learning environment really, but I think if nothing else, I hope this experience has taught us a certain degree of patience, because it will be very easy to lose your mind, and when you have to repeat things again and again and people drop out and back in, and I think also I think another learning from this as well is sort of, I hope, we've learned that it's okay not to know the answers, because we beat ourselves up sometimes when things go wrong, especially in the classroom as a teacher, and you kind of go, like, you get very frustrated, and sometimes it's just not our fault, and we can't expect to know the answers, we just have to deal with it in the best way possible. And then as everything has dragged on, and as it continues to drag on, and as the uncertainty remains for the foreseeable future, I mean motivation and energy is just, it is really, really hard to keep people up and keep people interested, and keep a very positive atmosphere in the classroom, from like a teacher's perspective and from a student's perspective, and for teachers to go in every day, and like kind of some students are logging into their pajamas, and some people haven't had their coffee yet, and people are like some people drop out for just issues with technology, but to keep a positive learning atmosphere, it's a huge, huge challenge. And again, I think we need to be kind to ourselves as well in that regard, in that it's okay that some days it doesn't go as well as it might, and that not every lesson is going to be perfect. In terms of, like, there were a lot of the challenges and ongoing challenges, I'm not sure, like there are things that we have tried, and that we feel are important, and that we feel have worked, but it's continuing to be a work in progress, and we're learning all the time. But I really do think to go back to the communication is so important, and not to sort of silo ourselves in like kind of okay, we're not really sure what we're doing, so we're going to maintain radio silence until we have a plan. And I think both for staff motivation, but also for students across like the whole range of problems there, but I think when using technology I think students need a very clear idea of how we're going to communicate when they can expect communication when they would get an answer to communication and how they should submit assignments, how they should submit homework when they can expect to get back. And I think all of that should be delivered very consistently. And of course it will always be technical issues, but as far as it's possible that when we say they can expect an answer to get an answer. And because I think especially when dealing with technology, if you tell somebody that something's going to happen when they go here and it doesn't happen then they're less likely to both try that again, or to believe you the next time. So it's really important to check all the links work on everything that we tell them is going to happen when they click on a button happens when they click on a book. So, yeah, I think as well, I mean, as I said before, we're very much a learner centered school, and we have, I suppose the luxury in a small school is to be able to be very person focused and to be able to give individual feedback that that isn't not the situation in many schools I understand that due to sheer size, but I think in every conundrum and every challenge we came to where we didn't really know the correct answer, we always aired on the side of kindness, or the most immediately positive thing we can do for the student and then worry about consequences after that. And I mean, I would normally be considered to work as very fastidious when it comes to the rules of regulatory bodies, etc. And if you say you're doing 15 hours a week in the morning then you're in class 15 hours a week in the morning or you're not getting attendance, but I think there are times when the rules don't work. And if we can facilitate students to engage in their course in whatever fashion is possible in these times then it's important to do it in a way that supports the student as a whole person. Yeah, that's great. And can I ask you to show the pictures that you have there, Joe, to just maybe a little bit of what they what they illustrate and of the approach that you took. Okay, and just very early on, I just have a few, few slides. And very early on, we decided that no one was going to lose any hours that we were to teach out all our students, and whether that be to add hours in but that the face to face time would be there. And let me just shoot this moment to forget how to use zoom. Okay, so, for example, we had an academic year program last year, and this is some of the students in the world for exams, and usually we have a Cambridge exam before they go home. And it's one of the things they really work very hard towards and of course they're only six weeks left or seven weeks left in when when the pandemic came so when they all went home, we put all their lessons online and we continued and most of them did the exam in these are all from Spain, when like during the summer, I am quite successfully out by that, and some of them preferred the online lessons. And I think that was another interesting thing that never really occurred to me that there are some students who actually shine in an online environment who might be quite reserved in a, in a, in a classroom so but and also with our adult learners as well as soon as we could get back to and as soon as we could get them on zoom they were doing their full time lessons again. And again, with adult learners as well, when like the first thing was that we were going to teach everybody out their hours. The second thing was, we want to be back in the classroom. And I know some people will question like why you want to be back in class we love being in the classroom. And as soon as as was possible we we were, well we we planned, we tried to. We set several dates, and they kept getting pushed out and pushed out because well things weren't very clear. And, but the whole time, like our aim was to be back into the classroom as soon as possible. So, we set up our like, and this is this year's academic year program, and when they arrived in and we kind of went back. In July we started to go back, and we, we did it in a graduated fashion we went back for one day, we saw how everybody felt, did they feel safe. What did they were running suggestions we got feedback were desperate for part with enough sanitizers etc. Then the following week we're back for two days then we did two days two weeks and then by sort of the middle of August we were back for when we run the program for two days in the mornings. And so everybody was back and of course we were just used to be back when everything goes down in. Initially, I mean, it wasn't perfect and the really was especially the first week with staff as much as students it's strange it's like it to be even on zoom all the time you're still isolated socially and and to get people. Like, it was a little awkward, like it was a little awkward to like people walking in and it's almost people have stopped looking at each other and when you're out in the world now and so it took a day or two and then. And once we were back the four days, everybody looked, it was just it was fun people like we took on some students from other schools to have the match who live quite a distance away from us and those students were happy to be on zoom. But like, even all of those, like after some initial grumbling, they kind of skipped into the classrooms after the second week. So we were really, really delighted with that. And, and we can't wait to go back and someone said to me today what are you going to go back just for three weeks before Christmas, and I said, we will go back if there's one week before Christmas, because I think it's important for everybody, especially at Christmas to be together and to spend some time with other people. Because it is very, very easily to become psychologically and socially isolated and that's part of the whole student experience. Sometimes I think that this year, no matter what we do in inside the classroom and within the school, it will only obviously be a very small part of how students remember 2020. And, but nonetheless, we need to make it a positive part of 2020.


Hello, and welcome to this presentation of the STM32 Interconnect Matrix. It covers the main features of this matrix, which is widely used to connect various internal peripherals between each other. The Interconnect Matrix, integrated inside STM32 microcontrollers, provides direct connections between peripherals. Applications benefit from these interconnections to ensure time predictable operations and decrease power consumption. This matrix avoids complex management of peripheral communications through reading or writing registers using CPU instructions. In some cases, it reduces the need to loop a signal from a source to a destination through a dedicated GPIO. The Interconnect Matrix offers two features. First, it ensures direct and autonomous connections between peripherals, allowing removal of latency in regards to software handling, thus saving GPIO and CPU resources. Second, the interconnection between certain peripherals can even operate during low power modes. The main peripherals having effect autonomous interconnections are connection sources, timers, analog IPs, clocks, extended interrupt event controllers, digital filters for Sigma Delta modulators, USB interfaces and system errors, and connection destinations, timers, analog IPs, digital filters for Sigma Delta modulators, and direct memory access controllers. Peripherals can be interconnected using the Interconnect Matrix even when the circuit is in a low power mode. The fully supported power modes are run and sleep. The connections from the real-time clock or GPIO to low power timers can also be used in stop modes, as well as Ethernet MAC, USB, low power timers, management data input output or MDIO slaves, real-time clocks, and the programmable voltage detector or PVD connection to the external interrupt event controller. The Interconnect Matrix can be used for synchronizing or chaining timers, allowing, for example, a master timer to reset or trigger a second slave timer. This slide shows a simple example of timer synchronization. Timer 3 is used as the master timer and can reset, start, stop, or clock Timer 2 configured in slave mode. Timer 3 is clocking Timer 2 so that it acts as a pre-scaler for Timer 2. Timers can also be triggered by a short circuit detection on a digital filter for Sigma Delta modulators when a USB start-of-frame is detected or by a real-time clock interrupt at a given time or at a regular interval. All these use cases are enabled thanks to the propagation of these triggering signals through the Interconnect Matrix. This example generates three-phase PWM signals in Timer 1. The commutation and duty cycle update are generated via the DMA engines, respectively Timer 3. The overcurrent is guarded by a comparator, external to the STM32 MP1 series, whose reference is driven by the Digital to Analog Converter, or DAC, and changed via the DMA engine. Phase voltage and currents are measured by an analog to digital converter, or ADC, which samples the channel four synchronously with the events generated by Timer 1. Other voltage sources are measured on external events, detected by the GPIO, and routed via the EXTI unit to the ADC regular trigger. The whole mechanism runs autonomously just after proper setup, so the CPU can safely execute speed or voltage regulation algorithms without the need for low-level control. The Interconnect Matrix is mostly used for triggering an ADC, DAC, or digital filter for Sigma Delta modulator through a timer event or an external interrupt, triggering a timer through an ADC or DFSDM watchdog signal, when a predefined threshold value is crossed by the analog input, triggering a DMA data transfer from memory to the DAC by a timer to allow a frequency-controlled conversion, calibrating HSI and LSI clocks, for example measuring the external oscillator LSE frequency by a timer clocked by the calibrated internal oscillator. Dual ADC mode, using ADC 1 as the master to trigger a start of conversion for the ADC 2 slave, monitoring the temperature of a connected internal temperature sensor or the VBAT to ADC voltage, or analog IP interconnect, for example DAC to an ADC, protecting timer-driven power switches through the direct connection of system error signals to the timer break input. These recommendations should be followed to ensure a proper interconnection in between the peripherals and avoid unexpected behaviors. Both peripherals need to be active and their inputs and outputs configured. When peripheral inputs share connections with other peripherals, associated GPIO alternate functions must be deactivated to avoid interference. Peripherals with active analog outputs override the associated GPIO functionality. Specific details can be found in the specific sections for each peripheral in the reference manual, as well as in the datasheet.