Christine McMenamin will serve the region as the new Cookeville Legal Lead for the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands.
Legal Aid Society is Tennessee’s largest non-profit law firm and helps provide free legal assistance to those in need. McMenamin will supervise the Cookeville office that serves ten counties in the Upper Cumberland. McMenamin said she has wanted to be a part of Legal Aid Society since she moved to the area last summer.
“That is just in my heart to provide free legal services for people,” McMenamin said. “It’s why I went to law school is to help people, and so I’ve been doing this type of work for a very long time, and when I saw the opportunity to become the managing attorney of the Cookeville office, I was extremely interested because I did want to help.”
McMenamin has 15 years of legal experience, with a majority of her experience focused on housing issues. McMenamin said currently, the Upper Cumberland is faced with a housing crisis, and that her experience will hopefully bring help to the many people in need.
“My experience is not only helping people with housing issues but rarely do people who are experiencing housing issues have just one legal issue,” McMenamin said. “They usually lost a job, or they were sick, or they experienced some sort of other crisis. Maybe domestic violence that then led them into this housing crisis.”
Many people believe the Legal Aid Society only assists low-income residents. McMenamin said that is not the case.
“Some of our grants do allow us actually to assist people without regard to their income,” McMenamin said. “So it’s mostly for low-income residents, but there are certain things like consumer law, domestic violence issues, and helping people who are 60 years old and older with legal issues.”
People will get the chance to meet McMenamin and other staff members at the Cookeville office during an open house event that will take place July 30 at 4pm.
