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 Return to Legal Aid Home Page.
Jump to information on Legal Aid's:
Litigation Department || Lawyers Referral Service (LRS)
Senior Citizens Legal
Advocacy Program (SCLAP)
Domestic Violence Program
|| Hotline and Clinic Services Programs
Serving Orange and southeast Los Angeles County's poor and
elderly
The Legal Aid Society of Orange County and Community Legal
Services in Los Angeles County (collectively "Legal
Aid") are non-profit agencies that provide free legal
services to Orange County and portions of southeast/south central
Los Angeles County's poor and elderly. They are funded by a
combination of public and private sources.
This year, Legal Aid will assist over 26,000 low-income individuals
and seniors with legal matters through its four offices in Santa Ana,
Anaheim, Compton and Norwalk. Approximately two-thirds of these
clients were women, with a large percentage of the services provided
for them either directly or indirectly benefiting children.
Legal Aid's clients are generally either at or below the
poverty level. According to the 1990 Census, Orange County has
over 200,000 residents and the Los Angeles service area that we
serve has over 150,000 residents who have incomes below the
federal poverty level -- a number that continues to grow every
year. Thousands more have incomes that make hiring a lawyer
impossible.
Legal Aid's Seniors Program has no low-income requirement,
however, offering legal assistance to anyone age 60 or over.
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Assisting with family law, housing, health, education and
consumer problems
Legal Aid assists individuals with family law, housing,
health, education, consumer and government benefit problems.
Repeated surveys of the local community have shown these issues
to be most vital to Orange County's poor and elderly.
The majority of the cases Legal Aid takes on are related to
basic survival issues that are either life-threatening or affect
the most basic of necessities, such as someone's loss of shelter
or inability to get much needed medical services.
Legal Aid does not handle cases for criminal defendants
or lawsuits for monetary damages that a private attorney would
accept on a contingency basis.
A partnership with the legal community
Legal Aid has a strong partnership with Orange and Los Angeles
County's legal community. They work closely with the Orange
County, Los Angeles County, Southeast and South Central Bar
Associations and other local attorney groups to adequately serve
the needs of the community's poor and elderly.
Legal Aid operates a Lawyers Referral Service (LRS) for the
benefit of the public that each month refers approximately 960
individuals to members of the local private bar for assistance.
Each person referred by LRS receives one-half hour of assistance
without charge. Payment for any assistance provided beyond the
initial consultation is the responsibility of the client. Over a
third of those using the service report that the consultation
provided during this initial meeting is sufficient to meet their
needs.
Legal Aid also refers clients to the Public Law Center (PLC)
of Orange County for pro bono legal assistance from
members of the local private bar.
Providing satellite offices to serve our community's
residents
The Legal Aid Society of Orange County provides two offices in
Orange County and two offices in southeast Los Angeles County to
better serve the residents of our community:
Orange County
- The main office in the city of Santa Ana to serve the
residents of Costa Mesa, Dana Point, Fountain Valley,
Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Laguna Beach,
Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, Los Alamitos,
Midway City, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, Orange, San
Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Seal Beach,
Stanton, Sunset Beach, Tustin, Villa Park and
Westminster.
- An office in the city of Anaheim to serve the residents
of Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, La
Habra, La Palma, Placentia and Yorba Linda.
Southeast and South Central Los Angeles County Community
- An office in the city of Compton, the Thurgood Marshall
Justice Center, to serve the residents of Carson (north
of the 405 Freeway), Compton, East Compton, West Compton,
Cudahy, Hollydale, Huntington Park, Lynwood, Maywood,
South Gate, Walnut Park and Willowbrook.
- An office in the city of Norwalk to serve the residents
of Artesia, Bell, Bell Gardens, Bellflower, Cerritos,
Downey, Norwalk and Paramount.
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Legal Aid has five main departments:
The Litigation Department has not yet
submitted their text.
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What is the Lawyers Referral Service?
The Lawyers Referral Service is a public service operating
under the management and control of the Legal Aid Society of
Orange County, a non-profit corporation.
The purposes of the Lawyers Referral Service are: to make
legal services more available to the general public by providing
a way in which any person may be referred to a member of the
California State Bar in Orange County or Southeast Los Angeles
County; and to provide support to the Legal Aid Society of Orange
County for furnishing legal services to those persons eligible
for its programs.
The Lawyers Referral Service provides a way for matching
clients who are in need of legal services with lawyers who are
interested in and competent to handle their legal problems.
The Lawyers Referral Service can refer you to an attorney who
is qualified to handle your legal needs. Our panel attorneys are
screened for qualifications, they carry malpractice insurance and
are in good standing with the State Bar of California. The
attorney will provide a free one-half hour consultation by phone
or appointment to evaluate your specific legal needs. The
attorneys are not Legal Aid attorneys. They will charge
you for their services. Fees should be discussed during the
initial consultation.
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The Senior Citizens Legal Advocacy Program (SCLAP) is designed
to provide free, courteous, high-quality legal services to
residents age 60 and over. Services are rendered on a first come,
first served basis. Any legal emergencies will be addressed as
soon as possible. If the Seniors Program cannot assist you with
your particular legal problem, they will attempt to refer you to
an agency or attorney that can help.
SCLAP provides representation in the areas of government
benefits, health, housing, consumer problems and, in other cases,
to the extent resources allow, where a senior has an immediate,
serious need for legal representation. The Seniors Program
provides legal advice on a wide variety of issues:
- Government Benefits - Social Security and SSI
- Landlord-Tenant - Evictions, mobile home and housing
issues
- Health - Medicare, Medi-Cal, HMO's and nursing home
issues
- Consumer Problems - Contracts and debt collection defense
They can also provide advice and referrals in areas such as
bankruptcy, small claims, wills, powers of attorney,
conservatorships, personal injury, workers compensation, family
law and real estate.
There are some legal matters in which the Seniors Program does
not offer representation:
- Criminal cases
- Tax matters
- DMV hearings / traffic or parking citations
- Bankruptcy
- Probate / estate planning
- Cases in which you want to sue for money
The Senior Citizens Legal Advocacy Program
project
is funded in part through funds from the
Federal Older Americans Act as allocated by the
Orange County Board of Supervisors.
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Community Legal Services operates a Domestic Violence Program
at the County Superior Courthouses in Compton and Norwalk that
assist approximately 3,000 local area victims of domestic
violence and civil harassment each year. The program assists
victims in obtaining restraining orders to protect themselves,
their children and other family or household members who may be
in physical danger from a spouse or partner. They are also
assisted, if needed, in their effort to obtain child custody,
child support, restitution, spousal support or custody/control of
property.
The program has been extremely successful and been formally
honored by the National Association of Counties for its
excellence and innovation. Because of the generous efforts of
dozens of trained volunteers and a low overhead, it has also been
very cost effective.
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To better serve its client community with
its very limited resources, Legal Aid has established new Hotline
and Clinics Services Programs.
Under the supervision of attorneys,
Hotline paralegals provide advice, counseling and referrals over
the phone to eligible clients. The type of advice typically given
over the phone concerns legal problems that are easy to identify
and can be resolved by actions that are easy to explain.
Multi-lingual Services
Although many Hotline staff members are bilingual, Legal Aid has
subscribed to AT&T's Translation Service which permits Legal
Aid to "conference-in" a translator, often in less than
a minute.
The Hotline also functions as a gateway to
Legal Aid's Self-Help Clinics and other in-depth services.
Self-help clinics, Legal Aid's most cost-effective referral
option, are available for numerous subject matter areas:
- Family Law
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- Landlord-Tenant
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- Also, self-help clinics will soon be
offered in the following areas:
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With the assistance of the private Bar,
the Legal Aid Hotline remains open from:
Monday through Thursday
9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Friday
9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Closed weekends and all
court holidays
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Last modified: Friday, February 18, 2000 01:03 AM
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