Her Justice, Inc. Service Area: This Provider At a Glance

Transcription

1 Her Justice, Inc. Overview of Achievements, Working with pro bono attorneys from 90 law firms and corporations, Her Justice provides access to justice to low-income women in all five boroughs of New York City who would otherwise generally be unrepresented. During the grant period, our volunteers and staff provided legal assistance in 5,742 family, divorce and immigration matters: Direct representation in 2,561 matters, including 693 closed matters Advice and brief services in 2,067 closed matters information or legal assistance in 883 matters, and Referrals in 231 matters IOLA funding enabled Her Justice to provide legal assistance in 3,014 closed cases that directly benefited 7,350 vulnerable women and children. For poor women, especially victims of domestic violence, the assistance of trained, competent legal counsel can make the difference between long-term stability and extreme poverty and homelessness. The women Her Justice serves attain freedom from abuse and the legal remedies they need to assert their independence from their abusers custody of their children, child support, divorce judgments providing children with essential health insurance and women with fair financial awards, and immigration status enabling them to work legally and provide for their families. During the grant period, Her Justice clients obtained financial awards and settlements totaling $408,384, as well as monthly benefits totaling $52,095. Our clients receive on average an 85% increase in their income post-representation, which means they can go on to live safe and self-sufficient lives. As The Task Force to Expand Civil Legal Services in New York concluded, the financial impact of civil legal services in matters like child and spousal support also greatly benefits the State and New York taxpayers. Her Justice exceeded the anticipated goals for the grant period for Individual Case Services Cases Closed and People Benefitted, Pro Bono Services, Community Legal Education and Pro Se Assistance. Her Justice is an on-site partner at all four of the City s Family Justice Centers (FJCs) where we work with other partner organizations (law enforcement, social services and legal services) to provide holistic assistance to abuse victims in their communities. However, not every woman in crisis will take advantage of the services at an FJC. She may be unaware of the FJCs, or hesitant to avail herself of the services offered there for reasons of language or culture or distrust of the government agencies present at the FJCs. In order to reduce barriers to access and ensure that low-income women in New York City are knowledgeable about their legal rights and the remedies available to them, Her Justice has developed a three-pronged strategy for targeted, culturally sensitive community outreach to underserved women throughout the City. We provide informational and know-your-rights presentations and direct legal services for clients of community-based organizations and capacity-building trainings in family, matrimonial and immigration law for small, community-based non-for-profit agencies that do not have lawyers on staff or do not have the capacity or expertise to provide the legal services their clients need. Her Justice is rated three stars by Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau of New York has determined that Her Justice meets all of its standards for Charity Accountability. Service Area: New York City Metropolitan Area This Provider At a Glance Population Served: Indigent and Working Poor Women Area Served: New York City Metropolitan Area Total Funding: $4,868,899 Total IOLA Grant: $155,000 Staffing - Full Time Equivalents Total Staff: Lawyers: Paralegals: 5.00 Staff: Types of Services Provided Direct Civil Legal Representation Brief Services Extended Services Hotlines and Phone-Based Services Technology and Innovations Community Legal Education Pro Se Assistance Collaborations With Service Providers Major Cases or Advocacy Projects Her Justice, Inc. - 1

2 Outcomes 7,462 Individuals Benefited from 3,014 Closed Direct Civil Legal Cases Dollar Benefits Achieved for Clients* - Total Family Law - Child Support: Family Law - Maintenance/Spousal Support: Family Law - Equitable Distribution of Assets: Extended Representation Outcomes $6,659,784 2,293 People benefited from extended representation $5,921,304 $536,480 Brief Representation Benefits $202,000 5,027 People benefited from legal advice and counsel 142 People benefited from non-litigation advocacy services *Total includes back awards and total monthly benefits, estimated over 12 months (equitable distribution of assets) or 120 months (child and spousal support). Examples... Outcomes for Clients A fter Vanessa, a victim of domestic violence and the mother of two girls, ages nine and 11, was assaulted by her husband, a criminal court judge issued an order of protection against him, barring him from their home. Since Vanessa s husband was the superintendent of the apartment building where they lived, the family s apartment and utilities were provided free of charge as part of his employment. Under the protective order, her husband could no longer enter the building where he worked. Vanessa and her children were evicted from their home. Attorneys from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP volunteered to represent Vanessa and fought hard to ensure that she received the financial support she deserved. Through arduous discovery and fierce advocacy, the team convinced the Court to impute additional income of approximately $21,000, resulting in favorable child support and maintenance awards. The final settlement granted her over $730 per week in child support, arrears in the amount of $8,000 and a one-time lump sum payment of $24,000, giving Vanessa and her children the economic security they need to begin a new life. C hristine*, an immigrant from Jamaica, endured years of severe psychological and physical abuse from her U.S. citizen husband. On one occasion, he kicked her in the face six times, leaving her bloodied and bruised. Pro bono lawyers from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP prepared and filed a Violence Against Women Act SelfPetition on behalf of Christine to help her secure legal immigration status. When the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) erroneously denied the petition, based on a police report related to above incident which did not state that Christine had been injured, her attorneys filed a thorough and well-argued Motion to Reopen with USCIS which was granted, and USCIS approved Christine s petition. She is now able to work legally in the U.S. and awaiting her final interview to become a Lawful Permanent Resident of the United States. Breakdown of Cases by Legal Problem Area Total Family Immigration People 7,462 5,166 1, Cases 3,014 2, Family 67% Immigration 26% 7% Her Justice, Inc. - 2

3 Services Hotlines and Telephone Based Legal Services Telephone intake is conducted in our main Manhattan office every Thursday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm on our Legal Help Line. Calls from women with emergency situations or facing immediate court dates that require responsive pleadings are always accepted. The hours and telephone number for our helpline are listed on the LawHelpNY website (last updated November 30, 2015) and the Her Justice website and in our client brochures which are available in English and Spanish in each of our five offices. In addition to conducting intake, our staff provides advice, information about legal options, and referrals to women calling for assistance. During the grant period, Her Justice staff and volunteers provided 981 people with telephone-based legal services. Her Justice serves low-income women residing in the five counties of New York City, with a special focus on victims of domestic violence and immigrants. One out of every four women we serve cannot access the legal system without an interpreter and our helpline is available in Spanish as well as English. We also assist former City residents who have fled their homes because of domestic violence with cases proceeding in Supreme or Family Court in one of the City s five boroughs. In addition, we make every effort to refer callers from outside the City to service providers in their communities. Technology and Innovations During the grant period, a contract was signed with LegalServer, Inc. to replace the outdated case management system that has been in use at Her Justice since The new system is web-based and is built on open source platforms which makes it compatible with diverse other software applications. As a web-based application, it will increase our resiliency in the event of loss of access to our offices. System configuration is in progress and the input of the entire legal staff is actively solicited in weekly meetings. Data migration has begun and our manager of information technology is providing technical and business process guidance to the developers. The system will go live at the beginning of fiscal year In addition, during the grant period, the legal management team has worked with the JP Morgan Force For Good project which pairs new analysts and developers with non-profit organizations seeking technology assistance. The Force For Good team has prototyped a mobile application for Her Justice which will provide our volunteer attorneys with access to important court location and procedural information, answers to frequently asked questions important case law, as well as language for commonly used motions and stipulations. We are currently seeking an ios developer to assist with the final deployment of the application through the Apple Store. Legal Services Than Direct Legal Representation In order to reduce barriers to access and ensure that low -income women in New York City are knowledgeable about their legal rights and the remedies available to them, Her Justice has developed a three-pronged strategy for targeted, culturally sensitive community outreach to underserved women throughout the City that entails informational and know-your-rights presentations, direct legal services through collaborations with communitybased agencies and capacity-building trainings for community-based not-for-profit organizations. Her Justice staff attorneys, paralegals and volunteer lawyers provide community outreach and know-yourrights presentations to low-income women, especially those who are victims of domestic violence, trafficking or other gender-based violence and immigrants. During the grant period, we conducted informational and know-yourrights presentations (1) on Teen Dating Abuse at the Urban Assembly School for Law & Justice on May 4 and May 5, 2015 (65 attendees), (2) on domestic violence and the services Her Justice provides at Beacon High School Career Day on November 10, 2015 (35 attendees), (3) on family court remedies (orders of protection, custody/ visitation, and guardianship at a know-your-rights presentation organized by Volunteers of Legal Service at P.S. 146 for parents, staff and attorneys on December 4, 2015 (15 attendees), (4) on Human Trafficking in Immigrant Communities: Legal Responses at Practising Law Institute on December 11, 2015 (40 attendees), (5) on Gender Inequality to the Global Kids Program at The High School for Global Citizenship on March 22, 2016 (23 attendees) and (6) on family, matrimonial and immigration law at the Brooklyn YWCA on March 21, 2016 (2 attendees), after which we provided advice and counsel to the two attendees. We also participated in a Conference Panel organized by Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA) on Immigration and Elder Abuse at The New School on June 3, 2015 (50 attendees). The total number of people served through these presentations was 230. The 11 easy-to-read booklets that comprise The Basics Series cover a wide array of family law topics and provide pro se litigants with detailed advice and instructions on how to proceed on their own in Family Number of People Benefited by Legal Services Than Direct Legal Representation Total: 144,055 People Community Legal Education and Pro Se Assistance: 3,274 People Web Usage: 139,800 People Legal Hotline Services: 981 People Her Justice, Inc. - 3

4 Services, continued and Supreme Court. These booklets are available in English and Spanish on our website and via links on the LawHelpNY website, and they have been translated into Korean and will soon be available online. During the grant period, the booklets were accessed on our website 209,981 times and we sent booklets directly by or mail to 3,014 individuals. Daily, our legal staff provides unrepresented women with information, legal advice and assistance as they are processed for fuller services, whether brief services or direct representation by our staff. During the grant period, we provided information, legal advice or assistance in 597 matters and referrals in 231 matters. Our legal staff is organized by borough to ensure that clients with a legal matter in a particular borough receive legal advice and counsel from attorneys who work out of that borough s FJC and are knowledgeable about the courts and other community-based providers in the borough. Collaborations With Service Providers Her Justice is an on-site partner in all four FJCs, where a staff attorney and paralegal conduct intake and we provide a full range of information, advice and counsel, brief services and representation in the areas of family, matrimonial and immigration law. We have found that the FJCs are a particularly effective way to connect with the women who are in greatest need of our services. Our in-person intakes at the FJCs enable us to more quickly and completely assess a client s needs, gather the necessary background documents and information and gauge her ability to cooperate with and benefit from pro bono representation. Last year, more than 70% of our matters originated at the FJCs. Her Justice works closely with the more than 20 other on-site and off-site social service and civil legal partners at each of the FJCs to provide comprehensive service to FJC clients. We conducted intakes in 2,114 matters for women who reached us through the FJCs during the grant period. Her Justice also partners with (1) Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA), providing legal representation, advice and counsel and brief services in family, matrimonial and immigration matters to elder clients (aged 60 or above), training JASA staff, and coordinating with JASA to provide Her Justice clients with JASA s social work services so that they receive assistance addressing their multiple needs; (2) Korean American Family Service Center (KAFSC), accepting referrals, providing KAFSC clients and staff with legal information and advice, and training KAFSC staff and intake volunteers to provide information to more members of their community and to conduct intake for matters to be referred to Her Justice, in a program focused on preventing and ending domestic violence and relationship abuse; and (3) Sakhi for South Asian Women, accepting referrals and providing community education and outreach to South Asian women. South Asians are one of the fastest growing, most insular, ethnic groups in the City. During the grant period, Her Justice also developed and launched a know-your-rights legal clinic with the Brooklyn YWCA whereby we take direct client referrals from four small community-based partners in Brooklyn Black Women s Blueprint, Trinity Healing Center, HELP Roads and Center for Family Life in Sunset Park. Each of these community-based partners does not have legal services onsite and has told Her Justice that its clients are not always comfortable going to the FJCs for legal services. Such discomfort stems from immigration concerns and the challenge of navigating such a large service Center. Her Justice hosted one legal clinic at the YWCA during the grant period and will be working with these partners to expand the clinic going forward. Backup or Support Services As part of our strategy to ensure that low-income, underserved women in New York City receive accurate, reliable information about their legal rights and the remedies available to them, Her Justice provides informational and know-your-rights presentations and direct legal services for clients of community-based organizations, as well as capacity-building trainings in family, matrimonial and immigration law for small, Sources of Funding Total $4,868,899 IOLA Grant $155,000 Income from Fundraising Events $2,785,603 State Funding $403,941 Foundations $220,000 $1,304,355 Her Justice, Inc. - 4 Income from Fundraising Events 57% State Funding 8% Foundations 5% 27% IOLA Grant 3%

5 Services, continued community-based not-for-profit agencies that do not have lawyers on staff or do not have the capacity or expertise to provide the legal services their clients need. Her Justice also provides mentoring on certain legal matters for attorneys at Bronx Defender Services, Catholic Charities and Covenant House as these legal services agencies do not specialize in Family Court or matrimonial matters and rely on the expertise of Her Justice senior staff attorneys to assist their immigration and teen clients in navigating Family and Supreme Court. We also provide significant training and support for pro bono lawyers. Pro Bono Volunteer Involvement What makes Her Justice unique is its pro bono first model. Her Justice specializes in offering pro bono assistance connecting volunteer lawyers from 90 firms with low-income women who desperately need a lawyer. For over 23 years, Her Justice has provided essential legal assistance to indigent women and children, as well as expert training and support for the attorneys who represent them. By engaging the talent and resources of private firms, Her Justice leverages its small legal staff and increases exponentially the number of women who go to court with their own lawyers and obtain the legal protections that they and their children need and deserve. Our 11 staff attorneys trained and mentored 784 pro bono lawyers, paralegals and law students working on 652 closed cases during the grant period. 2,971 volunteers were enrolled during the period, many working on cases not yet closed. Her Justice conducts live trainings year-round also available via video streaming providing detailed manuals containing case law and sample documents. CLE credit is available for live and video trainings and pro bono hours worked on referred matters. Our trainings focus on the impact domestic violence has on the lives of survivors and the challenges faced by immigrants. Volunteer lawyers are assigned an experienced staff attorney mentor who is available to strategize, answer questions, review documents and provide referrals. Four firm attorneys work full-time as externs in our main office, providing immediate in-court representation in complex or emergency matters and receiving daily mentoring. Non-attorney volunteers translate or interpret for non-english-speaking clients. Volunteer forensic accountants and investigators compile and analyze the documentation necessary to obtain fair financial awards. Our Summer Associate Program gives summer associates at our Corporate Partners hands-on legal experience and helps to recruit future lawyers to represent low-income women. This summer, 22 firms will represent 115 clients, many of whom have multiple legal matters. Law student interns and paralegals volunteer throughout the year in our main office, supervised by staff attorneys. Pro Bono Statistics During , the following volunteers provided services in our program: Attorneys: 560 Volunteers 47,615 Hours Law Students: 233 Volunteers 20,170 Hours Volunteers: 45 Volunteers 4,250 Hours Total Cases Completed by Attorneys: 652 Cases Dollar Value of Attorney Services*: $11.90 million *estimated at $250 per hour Her Justice, Inc. - 5