Heather Lewis is helping people get a better legal defense through her voluntary legal defense program, writes Maura Ewing for The Atlantic.

Heather Lewis, a social worker at the Montgomery County nonprofit Community Action Development Commission, founded the program after she got drawn into a case involving her son, Saabir.

Saabir was facing up to 20 years in prison on charges for crimes committed over the last two years. And while nobody got hurt, the offenses were serious enough to merit a harsh sentence.

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To combat this, Lewis immediately got involved in her sons’ case including testifying about his PTSD from years of childhood abuse. Now, thanks to his mother, Saabir will be home after serving just two years.

Public defenders often have overwhelming caseloads preventing them from properly preparing for every case. Lewis’s program hopes to compensate for this by training people who are not lawyers to be effective advocates for members of their families.

The weekly program has meetings at the CADC offices in Norristown and at a church in Pottstown. According to Lewis, the locations were chosen intentionally, as these two towns are among the poorest in the region.

Read more about the program at The Atlantic by clicking here.

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