Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia

the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia works to ensure that families, individuals, and communities living in poverty have equal and meaningful access to justice. Legal Aid provides advice, brief assistance, representation, and referrals to thousands of clients each year. In addition to direct client services, Legal Aid staff advocate for systemic change on matters that grow directly out of our individual cases. While the demand far outstrips our capacity, we attempt to take those cases in which an attorney can make the most difference. Our core priorities include: keeping people housed: hundreds of tenants each year avoid eviction or have serious housing conditions corrected as a result of Legal Aid's work. Our housing lawyers defend against improper evictions in court, assist public housing tenants to preserve subsidies, fight illegal rent increases, and work to ensure that tenants are not improperly displaced by development. Securing access to health care and public benefits: Legal Aid assists clients who have been wrongfully denied enrollment, improperly terminated, or unjustly denied services. Through direct representation in administrative litigation, training of clients to advocate on their own behalf, and advocacy with agency officials to achieve reform, Legal Aid works to ensure that necessary benefits and services are available to all who qualify. Securing safety from domestic violence and finding family stability: poverty has a profound effect on families. Not suprisingly, most cases handled by Legal Aid touch on the lives of children in some way, either because they directly involve issues of family violence, custody and child support, or because they address conditions in a child's home or income for a child's family. Legal Aid gives priority to those issues most severely burdening poor families. Domestic violence, child custody, visitation rights and child support make up the core of our family law practice. Consumer law: Legal Aid provides much-needed representation to homeowners facing foreclosure and to persons facing abusive debt collection practices. Immigrant Legal services: Legal Aid provides a wide range of civil Legal services including immigrant Legal assistance to members of dc's immigrant community. Appellate: Legal Aid has a nationally-recognized appellate program, the barbara mcdowell appellate advocacy program, which litigates poverty law cases before the District of Columbia's highest court.