Meet CLASI attorney, Brian Eng!
Brian S. Eng has been with CLASI since 2013. He is currently serving as the managing attorney for the Disabilities Law Program and also has responsibilities with CLASI’s manufactured housing rent justification cases. Brian, a graduate of the Widener University Delaware Law School (which had a different name at the time), had a circuitous path to the law and to legal aid. Brian assures us that it makes perfect sense for someone to graduate from college with a degree in chemical engineering, become an ordained rabbi, and then go to law school and start a career in public interest law. We have our doubts but appreciate his confidence!
When asked for an example of a case where he felt that he made a big difference in someone’s life, Brian responded that it was hard to choose. When pressed, he said that he has loved being involved in many of the major cases involving Delaware’s Manufactured Housing Rent Justification Act, helping to form the legal landscape in homeowners’ fights to keep their lot rent reasonable, but that there is nothing quite like the feeling of keeping someone from being wrongfully evicted from their home or preventing illegal discrimination or helping someone get or keep the services and benefits that they need through Medicaid, Social Security, and other state and federal programs. When we attempted to get Brian to give us a single example, he shrugged and said “I come to work every day, sit down at my desk, and get to work trying to make the world better for people in every way I can. Picking just one case to highlight hardly seems fair.”
When asked about one wish that he has for legal aid, Brian replied “I wish that we had the resources to help every person who walked in the door with a legal problem that they can’t find help for elsewhere, which is basically everyone who walks in the door. We do a lot of good around here, but the work that we have the resources to do barely scratches the surface of the need for civil legal services in the community.”