Melissa Morris

Melissa Morris was selected as a 2004-2005 Borchard Fellow to undertake the North Bay Disability and Seniors’ Rights Project, serving the low-income senior and disabled residents of Marin and Napa Counties, California. Melissa is providing individual representation and community education on a variety of legal issues commonly encountered by the low- and middle-income seniors of her community, including housing, disability access, and financial abuse.

Melissa received her J.D. from the University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law in May, 2004. While in law school, Melissa worked with several social justice and public interest law organizations—both on and off campus. One such organization was Legal Aid of Marin, where Melissa served as a summer intern in 2002 and where she is currently carrying out her fellowship project. Melissa also provided legal services for homeless clients through the East Bay Community Law Center’s Suitcase Clinic Legal Services project in Berkeley, California, and worked on disability rights litigation with the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin, Texas.

Since beginning her fellowship project in September, Melissa has assisted senior and disabled clients regarding Section 8 housing assistance, financial fraud, public housing habitability issues, and disability discrimination. She has also helped to organize a fair lending clinic aimed specifically at protecting seniors from predatory lending practices.

Melissa grew up in Kerrville, Texas, and received her B.A. in the Comparative Study of Religion from Harvard College in 2001.