Hausen’s Retirement From LANC Marks End of an Era, Beginning of Next Chapter In Career Driven by Service
When George Hausen burst onto the scene around the turn of the century, it was as if he had been shot from a cannon. As the founding executive director of the newly reconstituted and renamed Legal Aid of North Carolina, his impassioned approach as a tireless advocate for the civil legal needs of the poor was contagious.
Twenty years later, it still is, even as Hausen prepares to retire from LANC this summer and begin the next chapter of his remarkable career.
“Years ago, as a committee chair with the NCBA, I first saw George speak to the Board of Governors at the Annual Meeting,” said NCBA President-elect Clayton Morgan. “As I heard the passion in his voice and conviction flowing from his heart, I recall quite vividly thinking that morning that here was a man who was ‘all in.’ He had a command of the issues, he had a hunger for equal access to justice for all North Carolinians, and he was willing to put in the hard advocacy work to advance the organization and lead by example.
“Now, after serving as chair of the LANC Board of Directors and seven years on the board altogether, not once did I see that passion waver. To the contrary, George continued to innovate the organization and dedicated himself to its core mission and values. He will be sorely missed, but he is leaving the organization in a confident position for future growth and effectiveness.”
Hausen leaves behind an organization that has grown tremendously under his leadership – from 220 staff and a budget of $13 million to 475 staff and an operating budget of $38 million. LANC is now the state’s fourth largest law firm and one of the nation’s largest providers of civil legal aid, having served some 800,000 households under his watch.
How did you get from Chicago to North Carolina?
“It was kind of serendipitous actually,” Hausen said. “I worked in legal aid in a boutique firm that was an offshoot of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. So I did fair housing work, I did some landlord-tenant, civil rights work.
“I had done some trial work through the Metropolitan Leadership Council which was an organization that was started by Dr. King when he came to Chicago in the ’60s. I had actually done some jury trial work and federal court work as a cooperating attorney.”
Then his wife, who was pregnant at the time, came to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for graduate work. The year was 1998, and Hausen was waiting to attain reciprocity to practice in North Carolina.
“I was teaching school in Chapel Hill,” Hausen said. “I worked for a bank doing compliance and regulatory things and was actually looking after their HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) data. I reported directly to the board – it was Central Carolina Bank at the time. And I was doing pro bono work for North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services – writing memos and things like that.
“Then at some point, Legal Services of North Carolina, our predecessor organization, which of course the NCBA was the member organization, was looking for a litigation director. I applied and for whatever reason they hired me.
That was in September of 1999, and about two days after I got hired, Hurricane Floyd hit, so I was no longer doing litigation work. I was raising money for disaster recovery and expanding that program.”
In the meantime, Legal Services Corporation, the nation’s largest provider of funding for civil legal aid, was pushing legal aid providers across the country toward consolidation, including Legal Services of North Carolina.
“In North Carolina, there had historically been about 18 or 19 legal aid programs,” Hausen said, “and they wanted to consolidate most of those into one organization. Being the litigation director, I was attending those meetings, and at some point, the executive director of Legal Services of North Carolina left and I became the interim executive director.
“When Legal Aid of North Carolina came about in 2002, they rolled me into that position. Having gone through the transition, I had some idea where I wanted to take the program, and I got hired.”
George Hausen helps commemorate NCBF’s largest gift ever in 2018 – from the late Charles Dixon – which was designated to the NCBF Endowment’s LANC Fund.
Hausen didn’t come to North Carolina with the expectation of becoming an administrator, nor did he accept leadership of LANC with the notion that he would hold the position for two decades.
“I had managed campaigns back in Illinois and I was really interested in being a lawyer, being a litigator,” Hausen said. “That was just what was happening at the time – I never thought I would be here 20 years. It has been a wild and wonderful ride. I have enjoyed every moment of it.
“It has been a challenge, but it was not my objective. I fell into it. It was a perfect storm of circumstance – the opening came in when I was in a position to do that, and I felt like it was the way I could have the biggest impact at the time.”
It takes a special kind of person and a special kind of lawyer to work in legal aid, much less run a statewide organization devoted to that cause. But for Hausen, the work has come naturally. In a sense, instead of getting lost in the ’60s, he found his true calling.
“I think it comes quite frankly from my Catholic upbringing,” Hausen states in all seriousness, while acknowledging there are those who might lightheartedly roll their eyes. “I think the social justice aspect of Catholicism made an impact on me. I grew up in a blue-collar family in Chicago and it was just what you did in your neighborhood.
“The Democratic politics of the time in Chicago – everyone in Chicago was a Democrat regardless of whether you were Irish or Black or White. Everyone was a Democrat, and there seemed to be this zeitgeist there, especially in the church growing up, that you needed to work on behalf of your community on behalf of the greater good. I really do think that is where it comes from.”
Like many of his generation, Hausen also found himself under the spell of President Kennedy.
“I was fired up about ‘ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.’ I ended up being a Peace Corps volunteer as a result of that and a United States Marine. That was all part of it as well, and of course, President Kennedy was a Catholic.”
Hausen is quick to respond when asked to name the greatest challenge he has faced during his tenure.
“Raising money,” Hausen said, “and keeping the program going. We are deep with people who are passionate and committed. They’re brilliant. They’re creative. They have all the tools. But raising money to keep those people together has been the challenge.
“We lost all of our state funding a few years back. We have managed to work around that, but keeping the work funded has been the biggest challenge. The biggest failure – and I have probably had many – is that salaries have not really kept up. I think we could do a better job, but it’s all about the money, and raising money is a hard thing to do.”
And the easiest thing he has done, or better yet the most rewarding, is working with those attorneys.
“The staff attorneys and the managing attorneys are always the heart and soul,” Hausen said. “They are the focus. We’re always trying to improve the quality and expand that work out as far as possible. There is a true belief in access to justice, but it’s not only access to justice for us. It’s how do we end poverty.
“Working with the staff, they are brilliant and creative. Our public relations has done a great job of getting our name out there, which helps us raise money and do more projects. Helping people design those projects and creating a place for people to bring their problems so we can solve them.”
Legal problems, first and foremost, but also problems such as Medicaid.
“We are involved in Medicaid expansion,” Hausen said. “Many people don’t realize that Legal Aid of North Carolina is the administrator of the NC Navigator Consortium, which handles Affordable Care Act enrollment throughout the state. We get all of the CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) funding for that. It is Legal Aid of North Carolina that does that. It is Legal Aid that does the NC Medicaid Ombudsman program. We’re doing Disaster Relief in 38 counties with funding that we have raised for that.
“Those are the most rewarding things. It has been enormously rewarding for me to work with the quality of colleagues that we have at Legal Aid.”
Hausen has also worked closely with the North Carolina Bar Association and Foundation, speaking on countless occasions at board meetings and other events.
“The NCBA is the crucible for Legal Services and Legal Aid,” Hausen said. “The NCBA helped form Legal Services of North Carolina in 1976, so but for the NCBA we would not be here. Allan Head was an enormous supporter, and Jason Hensley has carried that on.
“The money we have raised, the pro bono involvement we have, is all directly attributable to our relationship with the NCBA. Of course, the NCBA is no longer the member organization of Legal Aid of North Carolina, but we still reserve five to seven slots on our board at any time, and the past president of the NCBA becomes a member of our board immediately as their final act as president of the NCBA. We have had some great past presidents, from Mark Holt who is serving right now on down through LeAnn Nease Brown and Jackie Grant and others who have been extraordinarily helpful to our organization. It’s a wonderful partnership that we have with the NCBA.”
George Hausen, right, accepts a gift from NCBA President Kearns Davis at 2017 Annual Meeting.
No one ever left a conversation with George Hausen wondering how he really felt about something, and so it is when he is asked what advice he would leave behind for the next person who sits behind his desk.
“We are so much bigger now,” Hausen said, “so you need to be decisive about where you can make efficiencies and where you can ameliorate poverty and expand programs, and what more can we do for our staff to create that work-life balance that will make them effective.
“The practice of law is very difficult. It can be debilitating for people. It causes great mental health challenges. Lawyers should be compensated for all of their hard work. It is a unique profession requiring a level of intelligence and character that is really special, and people should be remunerated for all of that.”
By the very same token, he continues, lawyers still have an obligation to provide pro bono legal service.
“My one concern going forward about pro bono is that lawyers building wheelchair ramps and working for food banks is great – they should do that – but when we’re talking about pro bono, we’re talking about lawyers using their lawyerly talents in lawyerly ways to solve legal problems. I hope we don’t water that down.
“The hard work that lawyers get paid for is also the hard work they should be doing on behalf of the poor. That’s what really constitutes pro bono. So I would advise my successor to try to get the pro bono in that direction because we need lawyers to do lawyer work.”
As Hausen considers where his journey will lead next, proclaiming “I do have a kid in college, so I need a job,” he leaves behind a vibrant organization that will continue to grow as it serves the ever-increasing legal needs of North Carolina’s poorest citizens.
“It is an exciting time for us,” Hausen said. “We’re going into our 20th anniversary. The board is adding some corporate weight to it. We are rebranding and refreshing our logo. We have opened a new office in Charlotte that will have a grand opening this year. We are now committed to Charlotte in a way that we heretofore hadn’t been.
“This is an exciting time, and I hope it will be a springboard to a new level of greatness for the organization.”
Closing thoughts?
“I am thankful for all of the support that the NCBA has given us over the years,” Hausen said. “When you think back on the difference that Janet Ward Black and Martin Brinkley and Caryn McNeill and the others who took on 4ALL, and helped us create Lawyer on the Line, and create the endowment for us, it’s really been an extraordinarily beneficial partnership for us with the NCBA.
“I hope that continues.”
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.