By the time Sara B. Tennen realized her pro bono client shared not only her birthday but the exact year of birth, the legal case had already become deeply personal.
Attorney Tennen of Rockville was raised in a stable, loving home; her client, born to a drug-addicted mother and incarcerated father, entered the foster care system and became a victim of domestic violence.
“It hit me so hard,” Tennen of B’nai Israel Congregation recalled. “Same day, same year. Two completely different worlds.”
That was seven years ago, but it led to a shift in perspective. It’s the kind of shift in perspective, she said, “that doesn’t just alter your worldview; it becomes your purpose.”
For Tennen, 46, that purpose is advocating for those most often unheard: survivors of domestic violence, children in dangerous homes and immigrant women navigating the trauma of abuse.
As executive director of Volunteer Legal Advocates in Northwest D.C., she leads a network of pro bono attorneys, community volunteers and advocates to provide critical legal services — and hope.
Volunteer Legal Advocates, formerly the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project, is a nonprofit that pairs volunteer attorneys with survivors of domestic violence and vulnerable children in need of legal protection.
Tennen’s path to this role is as intentional as it is personal. A lawyer and licensed social worker, she brings a dual-lens approach to justice, one grounded in legal knowledge and guided by the deep empathy of social work. Her work is trauma-informed, survivor-driven and fueled by a lifelong sense of moral responsibility.
“I really wanted a job where I felt like I made a difference. Even if on a small scale, someone’s world was better because of the work I was doing.”
Tennen said she is privileged to lead the 17-year-old organization “that gives voice to so many in our community who have been stripped of their voices. And to mobilize hundreds of other lawyers to broaden our impact is an incredible opportunity.”
Born and raised in Montgomery County, Tennen is a graduate of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School and spent summers at Camp Ramah and weekends at Congregation Har Shalom USY events. “Judaism gave me a grounding in community and justice,” she said. “Tikkun olam — repairing the world — is not abstract to me. It’s the work. Pursuing justice is baked into who I am.”
After graduating from the University of Rochester, she took a job at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, where two mentors, a lawyer and a social worker, helped her see how both professions served a common mission. That insight led her to pursue a dual JD/MSW degree from Case Western Reserve University. She trained by working with formerly incarcerated women preparing to reenter society. “It was my first real experience seeing how trauma is deeply tied to criminal behavior.”
Tennen became a prosecutor in Arizona’s Maricopa County, where she focused on sex crimes against children. She found the courtroom work rewarding, but increasingly complex. “The prosecutor’s role doesn’t always align with the victim’s needs,” she said. “It’s not always a perfect victim and a monstrous perpetrator. There are layers — trauma, dependency, fear. That’s when I realized my calling was elsewhere. I wanted to be closer to the survivor’s voice.”
Tennen, her husband, Adam, and their children moved to Rockville in 2010. Adam became chief development officer at the Bender JCC of Greater Washington and then executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Jewish National Fund. Their three children attend Capital Camps, and the older two are active in BBYO.
Tennen joined what was then the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project in 2013 as an attorney in the child advocacy program. It perfectly combined her social work and legal backgrounds, she said. She quickly began working across both child and domestic violence cases. By 2016, she was promoted to legal director. Three years later, she was named executive director.
Under her leadership, Volunteer Legal Advocates has expanded its services dramatically. In 2020, the organization began offering immigration representation to survivors of abuse and violence.
The organization has extended its domestic violence work to Montgomery County. Most recently, they’ve begun to offer emergency legal services by having a free legal clinic at a local emergency shelter, “so survivors living there can access legal support where they already are and when they need it most. It’s been an incredible addition to our offerings,” she said. “There’s always more to do. There are so many survivors we haven’t reached, and so many attorneys we can still train.”
Despite the successes, challenges loom. “We’re facing serious funding threats,” she said. “A significant portion of our funding comes from D.C. and Maryland government budgets — and right now, some of that is on the chopping block. If that happens, it’s the survivors and children who suffer.”
She advises young lawyers or law students interested in this type of pro bono work that “the cases are compelling and present an opportunity to learn and cultivate meaningful relationships with others, including clients and fellow volunteers.”
Take a pro bono case, she recommends. “Just one. You’ll learn so much and you’ll change someone’s life. Maybe your own.”
A real reward is hearing a client say: “‘You were the first one who ever believed me.’ You never forget that. It keeps you going.”
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.
