Creating Access and Opportunity

Larry Waters Jr. knows that legal issues don’t discriminate. 

“At a person’s worst moment, no matter who you are—a community member, a local homeowner, a renter, a doctor—when anyone has a problem, they all turn to the same person, whether to get advice or to navigate the system. And that person has a J.D.,” he says. “I saw that having a J.D. would be the biggest platform I could have to make change in whatever community I’m in.”

The idea of being a changemaker was instilled by Waters’ parents. “They insisted I do the best that I could—and that I was helpful, caring, and sympathetic to those in need,” he says. 

Waters’ path to his current practice at the public-interest firm Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc. (NLS), which serves clients below the poverty line, was deeply personal. His first legal internship was there, in disability law—an area he felt called to. “My mother and father both had health issues,” says Waters, whose father passed away in April. “I saw my mother, particularly, work all her life and really struggle to get disability benefits and Social Security. Being a kid and seeing that, and understanding that these benefits are meant to help people in these particular situations and not understanding why she had to fight all these years … that really pushed me.” 

Post-NLS internship, Waters worked at Hurwitz Fine, handling insurance and health care cases before returning to NLS to work on a medical legal partnership program. He then took a job at Goldberg Segalla in the firm’s retail and hospitality, and civil litigation trial groups. Soon after, however, a new project at NLS, the Community Economic and Equity Development Program, drew him back again.

“Dealing with client management, seeing larger issues and strategizing with some of the smartest attorneys I’ve ever met—I took all of  those [private practice] lessons and translated them to what I’m doing now at Neighborhood Legal Services,” Waters says. 

Waters is director of two divisions: Community Health Advocates, and Community Economic and Equity Development. In his work with community health, he sees clients with insurance issues, primarily those receiving Medicaid or Medicare. For some, he walks them through the system or determines their eligibility. For others, it can be more complicated, like the cases he takes on behalf of children who require specialized equipment—such as beds, wheelchairs, or adaptive seats.

Those are a little bit more complex, because they require you to gather all the information; work with the parent or the guardian to prepare them for questioning at a hearing; and then gather medical records, review them, and make the case that this equipment is medically necessary for that child,” he says. 

In a recent victory, Waters was able to get an insurance company’s denial overturned to cover the full cost of a $10,000 specialized bed to keep the client healthy and safe at night: “For this client, just sleeping at night was a health risk for them. And now it isn’t any longer.”

As lead of the two programs, Waters works with nonprofit groups that are either made up of, or directly assist, people who could benefit from NLS’ efforts. Waters recently collaborated with a tenants association for a low-income housing authority to ensure its compliance with state and federal regulations. “Tenant associations that are underneath federal law are controlled by [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development],” says Waters. “When all their requirements are met, they can apply for grants and further assistance.” 

The program is new, but making inroads. “We’re working on a community-needs assessment based on not-for-profit groups to really understand what their focus is,” he says. “Our ultimate goal, for at least for the first couple years, is to focus on the east side of Buffalo, to ensure people have equal access to whatever systems are available to them.”

For Waters, the most fulfilling aspect of his job is simple: “I truly believe that one of the greatest joys in life is helping others,” he says. “Whatever talent you have, whatever you can give back to your fellow people, you should. It could be as straightforward as answering a question they’re confused about, or making an impact on a larger scale by helping groups or agencies … grow and navigate the legal issues that come with growing.”

Beyond his direct legal work, Waters serves on the Western New York Integrated Care Collaborative board; the Erie County Bar Foundation board; and is a current board member and past president of the Minority Bar Foundation of Western New York, which focuses on creating a pipeline to law school for underserved communities. “That could mean talking to students who are in high school and interested in meeting attorneys; college students interested in the LSAT; or even students currently in law school who may need assistance with paying for a bar preparation course or other financial challenges,” Waters says. “It’s really about being there for these young people and creating access and opportunity.”

And he’s impressed with what he’s seeing in the next generation of lawyers. “They fight and they’re gritty. They’re taking the lead on fighting for issues of injustice.”

Volunteer

Opportunities with Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc. are available at nls.org/support-nls/volunteer/