Who We Are

Network

History

Legal Services NYC—the largest organization exclusively devoted to providing free civil legal services in the United States, with neighborhood offices in every borough of New York City—is made up of passionate attorneys and staff who provide their clients—single moms, workers with disabilities, seniors, and others—with a comprehensive approach to solving their legal problems and getting them back on their feet.

We provide high quality free legal help on cases involving housing, family, domestic violence, public benefits, income tax, employment, education, immigration, and consumer rights. We also help the most vulnerable people in our society – children not receiving their child support, victims of domestic violence, people with AIDS and HIV and elderly citizens facing eviction and unsafe living conditions.

Our work helps thousands obtain benefits they are entitled to and preserves families and homes.

Network

Legal Services NYC’s distinctive structure allows us to serve New York City’s low-income community on the local level, but with the full resources of a city-wide organization that comprises the largest provider of free civil legal services in the U.S.A.

Our offices and outreach centers are rooted in the distinct communities that they serve so that they can identify and be responsive to local needs and conditions of their communities. Each of our programs:

• Holds responsibility for local, community-based legal service delivery and local community involvement;
• Coordinates legal service delivery at the local level with courts and other forums as well as with community and social service organizations and bar associations;
• Retains leadership opportunities for individuals connected and sensitive to the needs of New York City’s diverse low-income communities;
• Maximizes the advantages of fundraising, by enabling fundraising to be undertaken at both the central and local levels; and
• Maximizes the advantages of creativity, plurality and diversity responsive to the varying needs of New York City’s ethnically diverse and widely distributed low-income communities.

Our History

In the late 1960’s, the U.S. government was in the midst of its federal War on Poverty. Federal funds from this initiative supported small neighborhood-based legal services offices throughout New York City’s low-income communities. In 1967, a group of these programs came together so they could better coordinate their advocacy, training and funding administration. We called ourselves Community Action for Legal Services (CALS), but would eventually become Legal Services NYC.

In 1970 we had an early victory with the landmark case, Goldberg v. Kelly, in which the Supreme Court articulated the due process standards for termination of government benefits. We continued to foster close ties to the community and pursue aggressive law-reform litigation, and in 1974, when Congress created the federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to fund civil legal programs around the country, we became the New York City grantee.

Throughout the rest of the 70’s and the early 80’s, we were funded almost exclusively by federal LSC funds. Yet when President Reagan took office and drastically reduced federal funding for LSC, New York State responded by developing the Interest on Lawyers Accounts Fund (IOLA), and we began to diversify our funding: obtaining IOLA funding, other federal, state and city contracts, foundation grants, and private donations. We also began to develop closer ties with the private bar, relying increasingly on their burgeoning pro-bono-oriented culture. In 1989, with a well-diversified funding base, we became Legal Services for New York City (Legal Services NYC).

In the 1990’s we further expanded our funding sources, allowing us to expand specialized legal assistance under government contracts for a number of services:

• Eviction-prevention
• Assistance to victims of domestic violence
• Work with persons affected by HIV and AIDS
• Disability benefit work
• Parent representation in child protective proceedings
  

We also reached out to private funders to support a number of innovative and nationally recognized programs, specifically addressing:

• Community economic development
• Foreclosure prevention/Predatory lending
• Legal issues affecting low-wage workers
  

In 1998, in response to New York State’s adoption of a mandatory continuing legal education requirement for attorneys, our Legal Support Unit became a state-accredited provider of Certified Legal Education (CLE) and now provides CLE training to over 2,500 individuals each year. During this period, we also began to strengthen our collaborative work with other organizations and became, for example, a leader in state-wide efforts to plan for and coordinate delivery of legal services. We are also a founding and lead member of the New York LawHelp collaborative, which provides on-line community legal education and referral information – and has been replicated in many states. We weathered the storms of 1996, when Congress reduced LSC funding and imposed a host of new restrictions on LSC-funded organizations.

2007 – our 40th year – marked another turning point for us. We became Legal Services NYC and adopted a new logo and brand. Our offices continue to be at the forefront of the most important and pressing issues of the day – predatory lending, bankruptcy, and affordable housing, along with a host of other issues affecting the most vulnerable people in New York City.

Funding for Legal Services NYC comes from the federal Legal Services Corporation, grants from the city, the state and federal agencies, private foundations, United Way of New York City, the New York State Interest on Lawyers Account Fund and private donations.

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