The Legal Aid Justice Center is a Virginia based non-profit organization which provides legal services and advocacy to low income individuals. It was founded in 1967 when its Charlottesville office was opened. It has three other offices, in Falls Church, Petersburg, and Richmond.
History
The Legal Aid Justice Center grew out of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Legal Aid Society, which was founded in 1967 by a group of Charlottesville attorneys in response to a perceived need for legal services for disadvantaged members of the community. CALAS received federal funding from the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1970, and local funding from the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County in 1982. CALAS also began bringing in private attorneys to provide legal services for community members in 1984. In 1998, the board of CALAS assisted in the creation of Piedmont Legal Services, an organization that would exclusively provide services that were eligible for federal funding, but that would continue to share board members with CALAS. CALAS then turned its focus towards community needs that were ineligible for federal funding and began raising funds from private individuals and organizations. In 2001, CALAS merged with Southside Virginia Legal Services in Petersburg, Virginia to form the Legal Aid Justice Center. In the same year, Piedmont Legal Services merged with other legal aid offices in Falls Church, Virginia and Richmond, Virginia to create the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society. The LAJC followed its sister organization and expanded to provide its non-federally funded services in these areas.
Client services and advocacy programs
The Legal Aid Justice Center's programs focus primarily on legal services which are ineligible for federal funding, while the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society works exclusively on programs which are eligible for federal funds.
works to end the criminalization of poverty in Virginia by exposing and addressing the injustice that results from criminal legal system policies- from policing decisions to court practices to state-sanctioned barriers to reentry- that target people because of poverty and race. Through a strategic mix of community organizing, local and statewide policy advocacy, and impact litigation, this program works to reform our criminal legal system’s over-reliance on incarceration and perpetuation of racial injustice. Though the Civil Rights & Racial Justice Program was officially launched in early 2017, the core values espoused by the program have been central to the Legal Aid Justice Center’s mission for a long time. Building on that work, the program is committed to intervening at every point in the criminal legal system- from initial law enforcement contact in the community, through the courts, to individuals’ confinement in Virginia’s jails and prisons, and finally to their reentry into the community.
Civil Advocacy Program
The Civil Advocacy Program serves low-income community members with a variety of non-criminal legal services. Civil Advocacy covers cases in consumer protection, employment discrimination, housing rights, mental health laws, and access to public benefits.
JustChildren Program
The JustChildren program was established in 1998 to address issues in Virginia's public education, juvenile justice, and foster care systems. The program uses a variety of methods, including direct representation of clients, community education and organizing, and legislative advocacy.
Immigrant Advocacy Program
The Immigrant Advocacy Program again uses a combination of legislative advocacy, public education, and representation of individual clients to improve the condition of immigrant workers in Virginia. Since its establishment in 1998, Immigrant Advocacy has settled cases for over $2 million to immigrant laborers in unpaid wages. Beginning in 2017, LAJC has expanded efforts to serve the thousands of immigrant farmworkers living in isolated areas throughout Virginia. LAJC meets workers at the labor camps, mobile home parks and motels where those who pick, pack and process Virginia’s crops reside, sometimes for only a few months each year. The degraded living and working conditions of many farmworkers would offend those who enjoy the food they produce through their toil. Physical isolation, language barriers and insecure immigration status make farmworkers particularly vulnerable to exploitation, through wage theft, labor trafficking and other offenses.
Elder Law Initiative
Building off of the model established by the JustChildren and Immigrant Advocacy Programs, the Elder Law Initiative uses advocacy, community education, and direct representation to improve the condition of Virginians in elder care facilities. The initiative works with individual facilities, organizes family councils, and informs individual residents and their families about their legal rights. The initiative also works with the University of Virginia Health System to conduct research in local facilities to identify issues and formulate ways to improve elder care in the region.
The Virginia Institutionalized Persons Project was created in 2007 and focuses on specific areas of advocacy to improve conditions for inmates in Virginia's prison system. For example, in 2011 the project worked on a class action suit involving Virginia's parole laws. In 2009, the program began researching the healthcare within the prison system, and has since begun advocating for reforms.
Clinical programs
The LAJC works with the University of Virginia Law School to create legal clinic programs that involve law students with its various service areas. Clinic topics include housing law, mental health, employment law, elderly advocacy, family resources, immigration law, and child advocacy.
Northam's School Safety Budget
"Richmond, Virginia - Today’s budget proposal from Governor Northam to dramatically increase funding for school counselors across the Commonwealth is a huge victory for students, parents, and educators! The Governor is proposing to increase funding for school counselors by $36 million next year as part of a three-year plan to reduce caseloads from the current ratio of one counselor per 425 students to the nationally-recognized best practice of one counselor per 250 students."
Fundraising programs
The LAJC's major fundraiser is an annual film screening hosted by one of its major supporters, author John Grisham.
Volunteer Opportunities
At the 3 locations, people can for a myriad of ways.
