This spring, the Housing Law Clinic welcomed two lawyers into its ranks, Vineeth Hemavathi and Deena Zakim.
“We are so happy to welcome Vineeth and Deena to the Housing team,” says Managing Attorney Maureen E. McDonagh, director of the Housing Law Clinic. “They each bring a wealth of knowledge about the subject area and embody the values of the Legal Services Center.”
Vineeth is a staff attorney with the Housing Justice for Survivors Project (HJSP), which was founded in 2017 by Julia Devanthéry to train students to represent tenants who are facing housing instability due to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, and which is expanding. Julia and Vineeth and their students provide direct client representation, develop and litigate impact litigation, conduct housing rights trainings for community members and advocates, and engage in local, state, and federal law reform efforts aimed at improving the housing rights of survivors.
Housing Justice for Survivors was fortunate to receive a grant from the Massachusetts General Hospital—part of the Mass General Brigham Health System—Community Health Impact Fund to support and expand the Project’s work. In addition to Vineeth’s position, the grant funds also enabled the Project to deepen its partnership with Casa Myrna, Boston’s largest provider of shelter and support to survivors of domestic violence. A Casa Myrna housing advocate has joined the Project, furthering its goal of increasingly interdisciplinary advocacy. With these new additions to the team, the Project can help more survivors alongside “our incredible community partner, Case Myrna,” Julia says.
Prior to joining LSC, Vineeth worked at the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, where he represented victims of housing discrimination in Western and Central Massachusetts, helped families secure lead-safe homes, and brought cases to ensure disabled veterans had ramps and other accessibility modifications in place. Vineeth has also been a staff attorney at Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, where he represented victims of domestic violence in divorce, custody, and restraining order cases. Before beginning his legal career, he was a field organizer on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, a Teach for America corps member teaching at a low-income middle school in Charlotte, NC, and an analyst with the FBI, primarily working in counterintelligence and counterterrorism.
Vineeth received his JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he was managing editor of the North Carolina Journal of International Law and earned the Seymour Wurfel Award for his outstanding service to the journal. He also was a student practitioner in the Pubic Interest Law Clinic, and earned an FBI Honors Internship. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and English from the University of Kansas, where he graduated with honors. In 2023, he became the first person of color to win a municipal election in the town of Longmeadow, MA, when he was elected to the Longmeadow Select Board, where he still serves. In 2024, he was named by MassLive as one of the Top Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Leaders in the Commonwealth.
“I am so excited to be joining Julia Devanthéry at the Housing Justice for Survivors Project,” Vineeth says. “My previous legal experience has been in representing survivors of domestic violence and then in housing law. The Housing Justice for Survivors Project is an opportunity for me to use everything I’ve learned to help survivors facing incredibly difficult housing issues.”
Julia says the Project “is delighted” to welcome Vineeth. “Vineeth brings a wealth of experience representing survivors in various contexts and has spent the last several years representing tenants who have been discriminated against in housing,” she says. “His unique skillset has allowed him to immediately make an impact on behalf of HJFS clients who are facing housing emergencies as a direct result of experiencing gender-based violence.”
Also joining LSC is Deena Zakim, who will co-teach the Housing Law Clinic and direct LSC’s Housing Medical Legal Partnership (MLP). Through the MLP, attorneys and law students collaborate with the social care team at Mass General Brigham to obtain the best possible housing and health outcomes for patients facing housing instability. Deena is a co-convener of the Eastern Housing Court Bench Bar and a repeat faculty member on several disability- and housing-related MCLE programs. From 2015 to 2025, Deena was an attorney in the housing unit at Greater Boston Legal Services. There, she specialized in working with tenants who had disabilities and were facing eviction or subsidy termination from public and subsidized housing, and she managed the housing unit’s MLP partnership with a local hospital. Deena did direct service work as well as systemic advocacy. Her practice included administrative advocacy and representation in the trial and appellate courts. Before GBLS, Deena clerked for the Honorable Justice Gary Katzmann at the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
Deena is the author of Reasonable Accommodation Issues in Housing, Residential and Commercial Landlord Tenant Practice in Massachusetts (MCLE Inc. 4th ed. 2022) and co-author of Housing Rights, Legal Rights of Individuals with Disabilities (MCLE, Inc. 3d ed. 2021). Deena graduated summa cum laude from Suffolk University Law School after graduating Clark University with a B.A. in Sociology (with a minor in Jewish Studies) and a M.A. in Community Development and Planning.
“Having worked adjacent to and collaborated with Julia and Maureen for years in the housing legal services world, I am excited to officially join their team, along with Vineeth, to work together towards housing justice,” says Deena. “I will be heading up the Medical Legal Partnership track in the Housing Law Clinic and have already begun work with the strong group of housing advocates on our MGB team. While working with tenants struggling through housing instability within the turbulent environment of medical crises is challenging, our medical legal partnership is a powerful format through which we are able to support each other and utilize the law and medical expertise to find innovative and immediate solutions for patients and tenants in need.”
Deena adds, “My favorite part of law school was my own clinical work and I will work hard to give my LSC students that same positive experience. I cannot wait to help light up students’ passion for the fight for justice while they make a real difference for real people and learn how to be effective litigators in whatever area of law they ultimately choose.”