Ukiah paralegal champions those facing eviction, unfair landlords

July 25--Karen Hansell doesn't work in a mirrored high-rise or pace courtroom floors, delivering lawyerly speeches.

The Ukiah paralegal keeps a humble home office. She does her best work in clients' living rooms, documents spread across floors.

On a recent afternoon, she sat on a couch alongside Bonnie Mackey in the Vintage at Bennett Valley apartments in Santa Rosa, guiding the disabled woman through the steps to sue her landlord over mold and bedbugs.

After talking to Mackey in her Scottish brogue, Hansell snapped the file closed and was on her way.

"Finally, I feel like someone is actually helping me," said Mackey, 60. "I feel like I'm getting somewhere."

It's a feeling shared by more than a few low-income folks these days who have turned to Hansell for help fighting evictions, separating from abusive spouses or seeking child custody.

Hansell is no lawyer but she's the next best thing -- a bonded legal document assistant, trained to navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of the law. Considered the backbone of most firms, paralegals like Hansell know pretty much everything attorneys they work for do but charge a whole lot less. They are expert in procedure and legal papers but are barred from dispensing advice.

On their own, they can be formidable.

After years at top firms and a stint in the Santa Rosa city attorney's office, Hansell hung a shingle a few years back, offering her substantial skills and blunt, no-nonsense style to those who can't afford expensive attorney fees.

She's already racked up a string of legal victories with a behind-the-scenes approach that is vexing some lawyers.

"I'm a big softie," Hansell, 58, said with a twinkle in her blue eyes. "If it was all about money I'd be doing something else."

In Sonoma County, there are several hundred paralegals, also known as legal assistants, said Monica Lehre, who heads the paralegal program at Empire College.

They are the unsung heroes of civil and criminal firms, typically earning less than first-year lawyers but handling substantial duties, from writing subpoenas to trial motions.

In busy firms, they can also be the ones to do the most hand-holding with clients and ensure they get through the process, she said.

"They get stuff out the door," said Lehre, a member of the Redwood Empire Association of Paralegals.

However, she said they must avoid crossing the line into unauthorized practice and doing the work of attorneys.

"They get put into positions where clients think they are attorneys, which is a danger," she said.

Hansell walks the fine line, pointing her clients to procedure rather than legal opinion. She sits in the audience as they appear before judges, representing themselves. More than one lawyer has tried to have her removed from the courtroom, she said.

"There are a few who don't like me because I beat them," she said. "They think they have it in the bag."

Most recently, Hansell has focused on helping people aced out in the tight rental housing market. As demand for apartments grows, she says landlords are raising rents and clearing out those who present any resistance.

One of those people was her ex-husband, Jeff Smith, a disabled Vietnam War veteran who lives at Vintage at Bennett Valley and receives public assistance. When he was hospitalized last year with a serious health condition, she said managers attempted to evict him.

Hansell got involved, filed a legal challenge and the eviction was dropped. Soon, other tenants in the sprawling complex came to her for help. Now, Hansell is in the process of adding their names to an existing lawsuit against the owners and management.

"Thankfully for Jeff, he had Karen on his side," said Santa Rosa attorney Joe Bisbiglia, who is heading up the suit. "If he didn't have her, he'd be homeless."

Hansell, a native of Glasgow, spent a nomadic youth sailing around the world on freighters with her dad, an officer in the British Merchant Navy. Her family traveled up the Congo River and was buzzed by a MiG fighter near the Suez Canal during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. She recalls her dad scrambling onto the deck to raise a neutral flag.

"I could hear the bombs going off," she said.

Her clan emigrated to the United States in the mid-1970s and settled in San Rafael. Hansell cut her teeth as a legal secretary at a collection agency before taking a series of more challenging legal jobs and attending college.

Having kids ended any dreams of going to law school, she said.

"Plus, I had a good-paying job," she said. "I made more than some lawyers."

In Santa Rosa, she worked for Brien Farrell, who was city attorney from 2001 to 2008. Farrell described Hansell as "highly skilled" and someone who "cannot stand by and watch someone be taken advantage of."

"I am not surprised that Karen has emerged as a champion for people who could not afford to be represented by an attorney," Farrell wrote in an email.

Hansell went on to develop expertise in housing in the years before the 2008 real estate meltdown as a forensic loan analyst for the now defunct Santa Rosa firm, Lanahan & Reilly. She was struck by the cutthroat attitude and recklessness.

"We knew what was going to be happening before the public knew," she said.

After a crash on her Harley-Davidson slowed her typing speed, Hansell opened her own practice.

Now, she works from home, traveling to see clients from Petaluma to Willits. She's earned praise from desperate souls seeking to keep their homes, settle a will or file restraining orders. Unlike many lawyers, she gets personally involved in her cases and she's willing to take payments.

"She's like a pit bull," said Dana Lewis, a former client who is living temporarily with Hansell while she finds a place of her own. "She doesn't let things go."

Hansell said her Scottish roots and a strong aversion to injustice drive her to help the underdog.

"I know it sounds corny, but it's true," Hansell said. "The system can be very cruel and unfair at times. People need to have their voices heard."

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 707-568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com.

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