Washington Lawyer May/June 2026
By Sarah Kellogg
Before he was a lawyer, before he was a law student, before he even knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life, David Steib was so captivated by a civil rights case that he slept on the sidewalk outside the United States Supreme Court to watch oral arguments.
He and a friend camped out overnight in March 2003 so they could secure seats for Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark case that would strike down sodomy laws nationwide. "We got in, we heard the oral arguments," Steib recalls. "It's just such a seminal case. It was so memorable."
Steib was drawn to the power of the law — its capacity to shape lives, define dignity, and correct injustice. Watching attorney Paul Smith that day, Steib saw something profound. "His arguments were so clear and logical," Steib says. "He was using reason and the law to really argue for what was right."
That night outside the Court wasn't just a youthful adventure. It was a preview. Two decades later, Steib's career has followed a steady public service path: housing litigation and advocacy, language access, federal policy, and now innovative civil case intake reform in the District of Columbia.
"I think there has been a through line, and I think it's access to justice," he says. "It's a concern for fairness and for equity and equality — and making this world a kinder place."
Early Pivotal Moments
Steib's commitment to helping people predates his first day of law school. "I definitely went to law school because I wanted to help … underserved and underrepresented communities," he says.
The impulse was shaped early by a powerful influence: his mother, a sociology professor who was deeply committed to addressing poverty and homelessness. With her, Steib volunteered at soup kitchens, attended the 1989 Housing Now! march on Washington, and absorbed the idea that advocacy is a moral responsibility. "She convinced me that helping people was a good thing to do," he says. "I went to law school thinking I wanted to save the world. I wanted to do good, but I didn't really know what that meant."
Pivotal moments came during his first year at Georgetown University Law Center when he took a torts class with Professor Mari Matsuda and an elective in public interest law with Peter Edelman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy. Steib remembers how these professors opened his mind to what a career in public interest law could look like and how to approach the law with a critical eye, always looking for ways to question the status quo.
Edelman gained fame for resigning as assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in protest of the 1996 welfare reform law, which he believed harmed poor families, and Matsuda has been one of the leading voices in critical race theory since its inception. "I can't imagine better role models to have introduced me to the profession and to public interest lawyering in particular," Steib says.
Starting Out in Housing Law
Steib's first professional chapter began at Legal Aid DC. During law school he worked in Legal Aid's housing unit, and after graduating he returned in 2008 as a Skadden Fellow and then staff attorney.
His efforts involved representing Spanish-speaking tenants, which combined Steib's legal training with his undergraduate major in Spanish. "Part of what I was going to be doing was representing [these] tenants and doing language access work, making sure tenants had equal access regardless of the language they used to communicate," he says.
The experience was meaningful, but it also brought a new clarity. The daily intensity of litigation revealed something about himself. "At the end of the day, it turns out litigation isn't really my cup of tea," he says. "It's a very adversarial process. I didn't love it."
Instead of stepping away from public service, Steib recalibrated. He began asking himself a question that would define the rest of his career: "What are the daily activities where I would feel energized and not drained?"
That reflection led him in 2012 to American University Washington College of Law, where he became assistant director of the Office of Public Interest, mentoring students considering similar career paths to his. He knew firsthand how valuable that guidance could be. At Georgetown Law, the Office of Public Interest and Community Service had been, as he describes it, "a home."
At American, he helped students navigate fellowships, loan repayment programs, and the uncertainty of early legal careers. Law school, he says, should be a kind of laboratory, especially because it has so much to offer students looking for insights into the law and their careers.
"I always recommended that students use clinics, use their internships, use their externships to figure out what they want to do as a lawyer," Steib says.
But eventually Steib felt the pull of direct community engagement again. "I wanted to be more on the ground," he says. "I missed being in a nonprofit setting and being more closely connected to the client communities that I wanted to serve."
Language Access as a Justice Issue
Steib's next chapter placed language access at the center of civil justice. At Ayuda, a nonprofit that provides legal, social, and language services to low-income immigrants, Steib served as language access director starting in 2014, overseeing programs designed to ensure that people with limited English proficiency and deaf individuals could access legal and survivor services. Language access, Steib argues, is not peripheral to justice — it is foundational.
"It doesn't get the attention it deserves, and it doesn't get the resources it deserves," he says. "It's such a neglected area."
"We talk about the legal obligations to provide language access, but also the practical, logical, ethical, and moral obligations," says Steib. "How do you solve crimes if you can't speak to victims? What do you do when someone comes into the emergency room having a heart attack? Do you say, 'Please come back once you've learned English'?"
The same logic applies in housing enforcement. "How are you going to enforce the housing code if tenants can't come forward because you can't communicate with them in their language?" Steib asks.
Connecting Clients With Resources
After nearly a decade at Ayuda, Steib joined the U.S. Office for Access to Justice, a standalone agency under the Department of Justice created in 2010 during the Obama administration.
As acting deputy director of programs, he oversaw language access initiatives, federal pro bono efforts, international collaborations, an access to justice prize competition, and the Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable. The work supported veterans, strengthened pro bono engagement across federal agencies, and fostered international exchanges around justice systems.
"It was vital work, integral to the health of our country," he says. Yet the infrastructure behind access to justice work is often fragile. Funding shifts and political changes constantly reshape the landscape. Still, Steib sees one constant: "Access to justice is a nonpartisan issue."
Today, Steib serves as a deputy director of the DC Resource Bridge, a coordinated, single-point intake and referral system launched in 2025. The project was developed by the DC Bar Foundation, is hosted and operated by Legal Aid DC, and collaborates with legal services organizations across the District of Columbia.
The concept is simple but powerful. In a city with roughly 50 civil legal aid providers — each with different areas of practice, eligibility requirements, and capacity limits — navigating the system alone can be overwhelming. The DC Resource Bridge aims to remove that barrier.
"The DC Resource Bridge gives people one number to call and an online application to fill out in one place," Steib says. "Then we make sure they get to the organization most likely able to help them."
Tools for the Future
The need is immense. Nationally, 92 percent of the civil legal problems faced by low-income Americans receive inadequate or no legal help, according to The Justice Gap report issued by the Legal Services Corporation in 2022.
The numbers are equally compelling in the District of Columbia. Across multiple civil litigation areas, approximately 75 percent to 97 percent of parties may appear without an attorney, according to a 2019 report by the D.C. Access to Justice Commission.
Unlike in criminal cases, there is no constitutional right to counsel in civil matters, even when someone is facing eviction or escaping domestic violence. "Without a lawyer, people suffer on their own," Steib says. "And they don't always get a resolution."
For Steib, closing the justice gap requires both preservation and innovation. Funding civil legal aid and supporting pro bono work remain the bedrock. But the future also demands new approaches: community justice workers, technological integration, and responsible use of artificial intelligence.
"AI is going to play a role in making sure people have access to information that can get them the help they need," he says. "We just need to ensure it's meeting their needs."
When asked what he would tell law students who are uncertain about their career path, Steib doesn't hesitate. "I would definitely recommend it," he says of public interest law. "A career in access to justice is incredibly fulfilling."
In addition to public interest careers, he recommends exploring pro bono work in its many forms. Lawyers can represent clients directly, volunteer at clinics, help draft amicus briefs, mentor younger attorneys, serve on nonprofit boards, or support rule-of-law initiatives. And in many ways, Steib's own journey reflects that breadth. He built a career helping tenants, students, and immigrants. Today, he helps to oversee a system designed to assist thousands of D.C. residents in finding a lawyer.
Two decades after that night outside the Supreme Court, Steib is still guided by the same principle: that the law, used well, can make the world less brutal. "The world is a much crueler place than what it could easily be," he says.
Sarah Kellogg is a freelance writer based in the Washington, D.C., area.
