Peggy P. Lee is a senior staff attorney in the Athens office. Peggy joined SEOLS as a staff attorney in 1996. Peggy works on a wide-variety of civil legal issues. As a member of SEOLS’s Housing Team, she has focused on both landlord-tenant housing cases in the subsidized and nonsubsidized contexts as well as defending homeowners from foreclosure. In that capacity, she has presented at national and statewide conferences and performed trainings and webinars on various foreclosure-related topics to SEOLS staff, pro bono private attorneys, and housing counselors, while also helping individual distressed homeowners.

Peggy also has helped homeowners through non-litigation work. In 2010, with the National Housing Law Project, she successfully advocated for a policy change and the implementation of the Home Affordable Modification Program for USDA Guaranteed mortgage loans. In 2009, she successfully obtained an agreement by USDA to reverse or stop the foreclosure process in its Eastern Region due to the agency sending faulty acceleration notices.

Peggy is a recipient of several awards for her outstanding work. For her foreclosure-related work, Peggy received the Ohio State Legal Services Association & Southeastern Ohio Legal Services Leadership Award in 2009 and the National Consumer Law Center’s Consumer Advocate of the Year award in 2013. Peggy also received the Cornell Law School Alumni Exemplary Public Service Award in 2012.

Bar & Court Admissions

• State of Ohio
• State of New York
• United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio

Bar Activities

• Member, Athens County Bar Association

Volunteer and Community Activities

• Member, Ohio Racial Justice Training Initiative group through Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
• Member, Ohio Consumers Counsel’s Southeast Community Advisory Panel
• Member, Region 17 Planning Committee (for housing and homelessness issues)
• Member, Athens Area Housing Coalition

Significant Cases

• Bank of America v. Kuchta, 141 Ohio St.3d 75, 2014-Ohio-4275, 21 N.E.3d 1040 (as coauthor of amicus brief, advocating that a court is without jurisdiction to hear a case when a foreclosing plaintiff does not have standing).
• U.S. Bank Natl. Assn. v. Duvall, 129 Ohio St.3d 1479, 2011-Ohio-4751, 953 N.E.2d 844 (as co-author of amicus brief, advocating that a foreclosing plaintiff does not have standing when it does not have an interest in the promissory note or mortgage when it filed its lawsuit).
• U.S. Bank Natl. Assn. v. Perry, 134 Ohio St.3d 328, 2012-Ohio-5497, 982 N.E.2d 665 (as co-author of amicus brief, advocating that a foreclosing plaintiff does not have standing when it does not have an interest in the promissory note or mortgage when it filed its lawsuit).
• Kimble v. Kimble, 97 Ohio St.3d 424, 2002-Ohio-6667, 780 N.E.2d 273 (a trial court does not have the authority to modify or terminate an order for spousal support if it does not expressly reserve that right).

Publications

• “Using the National Mortgage Settlement to Help Clients in Foreclosure,” Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, May-June 2013.
• Co-Author, “Leadership Mentoring: A Ten Year Relationship,” Management Information Exchange Journal, Spring 2015.
• Editor, Westlaw’s Ohio Consumer Law Handbook, Credit Card Law chapter
• Editor, 1995-1996, Cornell International Law Journal (published by Cornell Law School)

Education

• Wellesley College (B.A. in cognitive science, 1992)
• Cornell Law School (J.D., 1996)