Previous Family Law Project Volunteer Award Winners
 

Miriam H. Ruttenberg & Katherine S. Nemens

MIRIAM H. RUTTENBERG graduated from Hampshire College in 1990 and received her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law in 1994. Attorney Ruttenberg has been a staff attorney at Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee (MHLAC) since 2000, and prior to that practiced family law at a small civil rights firm in Maryland. At MHLAC Attorney Ruttenberg concentrates on representing parents with mental disabilities in custody, visitation, and child support disputes. Attorney Ruttenberg has served as a mentor for volunteer attorneys taking cases through the Family Law Project for the past three years. She is also on the WBF Framingham Committee and regularly does educational outreach programs on custody and visitation issues for incarcerated women.

KATHERINE S. NEMENS, who graduated from Cornell University in 1997 with a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations, went on to receive her J.D from Northeastern University School of Law in 2001. Attorney Nemens is presently the supervising attorney for the Clubhouse Family Legal Support Project (CFLSP), which is co-funded by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, the Massachusetts Bar Foundation and the Boston Bar Foundation. As the supervising attorney for the CFLSP, she manages one full-time staff attorney, as well as handling her own caseload of representing parents with mental illness in their custody and visitation cases in the Probate and Family Court. Before coming to the CFLSP, Attorney Nemens had previous experience working with low income clients as a staff attorney in the family law unit of the Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts.

Attorney Nemens was a 2005-2006 Boston Bar Association Public Interest Leader, and is a regular presenter/trainer for the Clubhouse Project, including at the 2005 Annual Juvenile Court Judges Conference, the 2006 Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership “Partnering for Recovery” Conference, the 2006 Committee for Public Counsel Services, Children and Family Law Program continuing education Conference, the 2006 UPENN Collaborative on Community Integration: National State of the Knowledge Conference, in Philadelphia, and the 2008 33rd Annual US Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association Conference: Innovations in Psychiatric Rehabilitation, regarding supported parenting, in Chicago.

We have both really enjoyed being mentors for the Family Law Project—it is a great opportunity to share our family law expertise with an excellent cadre of dedicated attorneys who are eager to provide a much needed service to both the clients and the family law bar. On one particular case we mentored a seasoned attorney who was new to family law issues. This volunteer attorney had a complicated case with a client who had mental health issues and a substance abuse history. The volunteer attorney was extremely hard-working and committed to doing the best job that he could with a difficult set of facts. It felt like a real team effort and really showed how this program works to help clients who have limited options for quality legal representation.

---Miriam H. Ruttenberg & Katherine S. Nemens

Kristine Ann Cummings

Kristine Ann Cummings is an attorney at the law firm of Schlesinger and Buchbinder, LLP where she concentrates her practice in domestic relations and general civil litigation. Since her admittance to the bar in 2007, Attorney Cummings has represented several victims of domestic violence through the Family Law Project for Battered Women (FLP). She is also involved with the Outreach Commission of the Parish of St. Ignatius of Loyola and is a member of the Family Law sections of the Boston Bar Association and the Massachusetts Bar Association.

Among the many cases that she has taken, Attorney Cummings successfully defended a young woman against a retaliatory 209A Abuse Protection order that was obtained against her, ex parte, by her husband’s mother. After a long history of domestic violence, the wife had filed for divorce and obtained an abuse protection order against her husband. The husband then had his mother file a retaliatory abuse prevention order against the client, drafted his mother’s affidavit, and served as an interpreter for the court. Attorney Cummings defended her client and, after a full hearing at which both parties presented testimony with the aid of a court interpreter, the Judge found insufficient evidence to support the allegations of abuse and vacated the order.

Attorney Cummings also represented a former wife with respect to a modification action filed by a former husband. The former husband sought an order terminating alimony payments to the former wife after he was injured on the job and no longer able to work. Ms. Cummings successfully argued that the alimony payments should be neither terminated nor reduced where the husband had the ability to pay the amount required by the judgment.

Attorney Cummings is presently representing the wife in a litigious divorce action involving the custody of four young children. This matter has been complicated by issues of domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse, mental illness and a pending criminal investigation against the husband.

"While complex issues of abuse, homelessness and mental illness can at times make the cases I take through the FLP quite challenging, it is also what makes them so rewarding. At the end of the day, this program is not just about helping someone in need during a difficult time, but truly empowering women to build a new life for themselves."