At age 67, traveling, reading and tennis aren’t enough for Simon Lazarus. “I like to go to the theater and do other things, but I do have one serious focus. I feel that’s better than puttering around the house,” he says.

For a good portion of each week, he works as a public policy counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC) in Washington, D.C., on legal and public issues of importance to older Americans. He is motivated by a desire to counteract what he says are “the evident efforts of somewhat conservative justices to find back-door ways of undermining progressive federal laws” that protect the rights of older citizens.