With many Bay Staters laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) has received an influx of welfare and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applications. As changes happen rapidly, Lauren Picone ’01 has been utilizing her legal expertise and public health knowledge to ensure people still get the assistance they need during a time of great uncertainty.
Working as deputy general counsel — a promotion she received in June — Picone handles public records requests and contract work for the DTA, sometimes defending her agency when clients are aggrieved with welfare decisions. She’s most exhilarated, though, when she hears the phone ring. Lawyers in her department take turns on the “attorney of the day line,” answering both tough legal questions and giving advice to colleagues about how to handle tricky situations with clients. “There are a million issues that come up, and we’ll provide advice as needed,” she says. Picone adds that welfare records are protected for privacy reasons in Massachusetts, so they receive a lot of privacy questions.
The decisions the office makes affect clients’ day-to-day lives, especially during a time when there’s a significant rise in unemployment. “Watching my colleagues adjust to rapidly changing circumstances in a real-life way makes me think [I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing],” she says. One such circumstance is requesting waivers for the federally funded SNAP program, to help clients gain easier access to food during the pandemic. “Being able to actually have an effect on people — not just on one person but on a population — makes me happy that I am where I am.”
Picone first envisioned herself in a public health career while working in a sexual health clinic for the National Health Service in London after graduating from Colgate. After earning a law degree from Northeastern and a master’s in public health at Tufts, she honed her skills at the Boston law firm Gilman McLaughlin & Hanrahan. She says going to law school gave her “the means to actually make changes” in the public health field. She takes that mindset to work today, believing that assisting one person can help a population.
“I never wanted to be the type of attorney who just reviewed documents all day, so having constant contact with clients is fulfilling for me.”