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Browse the latest Pro Bono Opportunities at The Legal Aid Society.
NOTE: These opportunities are only available to attorneys affiliated with firms that have an established pro bono relationship with The Legal Aid Society.
If you are interested in working on one of these matters, please contact the Pro Bono Counsel at your law firm to receive authorization and check conflicts.
Our Economic Equities Unit seeks pro bono assistance for a client who wishes to become a first-time business owner. Assistance is needed quickly as our clients seek to purchase an existing business by June 1, 2024.
Our client is a low-income immigrant seeking to purchase the coffee shop in Sunnyside, Queens where he has been working for over 9 years. The owners of the business are retiring and offered to sell the business to our client. The parties have agreed on the purchase price and our client will be purchasing the furniture, equipment, and fixtures in the space. However, the commercial lease has expired so our client will need to negotiate a new lease with the landlord. In addition to assistance with reviewing a commercial lease, our client will also need pro bono counsel to review and negotiate the Business Sale Agreement. Our client may also need advice about whether he should form a new legal structure compared with purchasing an existing corporation.
Our Community Development project seeks help with drafting robust confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements for a client chosen to participate in Yeshiva University’s Innovation Lab incubator this summer. This client also seeks IP advice.
Our client is the founder of a dynamic startup that emerged in response to NYC’s new waste laws. The business aims to streamline waste separation challenges for landlords and property developers, thereby revolutionizing waste management through an organized collection system, enhancing efficiency in recycling, and disposal. This startup prioritizes environmental sustainability, public health, and community well-being. Key to this effort is the use of AI to develop waste profiles for customers and clients.
Our client, a native of Washington Heights, was invited to participate in Yeshiva University’s Innovation Lab incubator in 2023. Following his successful experience, the school arranged for several PHD candidates to intern with our client. These PHD candidates, who are studying computer science and AI, will develop an AI program and algorithm that will allow waste management clients to create a waste profile, which is key to the startup’s operations. The algorithm and waste profile will enable clients to discern actionable insights from their specific data.
Our client wants help drafting confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements and drafting an assignment that secures the rights in all IP created by summer interns to the startup. Ideally, the confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements would be completed by the time the interns begin their work this summer.
Our Criminal Appeals Bureau is looking for Pro Bono co-counsel to help with a pardon application for an upstanding community member who wishes to apply for U. S. citizenship.
Our client immigrated to the United States from Jamaica in 1980 at the age of 12. His transition to New York City was difficult. Needing to work part time at a young age, he struggled in school and eventually dropped out at age 17. On February 11, 1988, police stopped our then-19-year-old client and a group of others while they were walking on Jamaica Avenue. After searching our client, the police recovered cocaine and he was arrested. He was sentenced to five years’ probation for attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree but earned an early discharge after less than three years of probation.
Our client’s life began to take a turn for the better after the birth of his first child in 1990. Our client obtained a computer technician certificate and became a licensed minister, initially working as a minister’s assistant and teaching congregants how to use computers. He also started his own business building computers from scratch. In 1998, he began working full-time as a station agent for New York City Transit and remained in this role for ten years.
Since then, our client has worked diligently to engage with and better his community. In 2000, he founded his own church, which runs an afterschool program and summer camp, and provides residents with school supplies and food. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, his church offered shelter and food to those rendered homeless. The church has also received recognition for its parent empowerment program, which was part of President Obama’s fatherhood initiative. Our client serves on Community Board 14 in Queens, has authored three books, and has received many accolades due to his continued devotion to his community, including delivering the Opening Prayer of the March 20, 2023 session of the New York State Assembly.
Our client wishes to apply for citizenship, but his previous conviction involving a controlled substance currently bars him from doing so. He seeks Pro Bono counsel to help draft a pardon application with supporting documents from friends, family, and employers.
The Juvenile Rights Practice currently represents a 20-year-old client who was involved in an automobile accident while driving a rental car in December of 2023. The client, in foster care, legally rented the car and paid the extra surcharge for Young Renters and accepted the additional Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) protection.
The client received a notice from State Farm Insurance dated February 22, 2024, stating that their investigation indicated he was responsible for the loss and that they are seeking to recover their payment from him. However, there was no person identified to contact in the letter. He subsequently received a notice dated March 26, 2024, from a subrogation company stating they were retained by the insurance company to collect payments they claimed were owed. The letter states that our client owes $18,275.00 and that he is at risk of having his license suspended if he does not pay. The client is extremely concerned because he does not have additional insurance to cover this alleged loss and desperately needs to have his driver’s license to maintain his employment.
The Legal Aid Society is looking for pro bono counsel to represent this client and assist him in resolving this matter. There are a number of issues in question, including whether New York State will suspend his license because of a debt, whether his acceptance of the CDW protection should cover this claim, and what amount of coverage the rental car company is required to provide for property damage liability under New York law.
Our clients fled Venezuela after the military broke into their home in an attempt to intimidate and extort the family as part of a larger military campaign focusing on small business owners. Our primary client, the mother of the family, entered the United States on 8/24/2023, along with her three minor children and the father of her youngest child. Upon entry to the United States, our client was sexually abused by a US immigration officer. She reported the incident to other immigration officers and continues to cooperate in a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) internal investigation regarding this incident.
Pro bono counsel is needed to represent our client and her family on applications for asylum, a Change of Venue Motion from Houston to New York, and any additional matters before the Immigration Court. Counsel will also need to advise the mother regarding her continued cooperation with the CBP internal investigation, which could potentially allow the family to pursue a U visa for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity.
The family must file for asylum before 8/23/2024.
LAS Immigration Law Unit advocates are available to advise and assist on this matter, but pro bono counsel should expect to take lead on all aspects of representation, including providing translation and interpretation as needed. LAS will provide access to recorded trainings outlining the basics of asylum representation and interviewing clients.
Our Health Law Unit seeks pro bono assistance on behalf of our client who wishes to pursue affirmative litigation against her prior employer who failed to properly notice a COBRA-qualifying event and retroactively disenrolled our client from their health insurance. These actions caused our client to be ineligible for Medicaid and left her with extensive medical debt.
Our client worked for a New York State-run psychiatric program until October 2020 when she was terminated due to loss of funding during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our client had a self-funded health insurance plan through her job and coverage was set to end a month after her termination. Our client was approved for Medicaid once she believed her employer-provided health insurance ended. However, the New York State of Health (NYSOH) sent her notice that she could not enroll into a Medicaid managed care plan because she was still enrolled in her prior plan. Our client did, however, qualify for Medicaid fee-for-service as secondary insurance. When our client attempted to disenroll from the employer-provided plan she was told that her employer would have to terminate her coverage and that she could not do so unilaterally. Our client made numerous attempts to contact her former employer’s HR department but never received a call back. Our client needed medical attention during this time, so she continued to use her employer-provided insurance with Medicaid fee-for-service. Between 2020 and 2022, our client went a step further and confirmed her coverage by calling plan provided by her previous employer before most, if not all her doctor visits.
In January 2023, our client called her plan before a medical appointment and was told that her former employer terminated her coverage retroactively to November 2020. Our client received a COBRA notice dated 2023 indicating that in 2020 she experienced a COBRA-qualifying event and that she would have to pay over $800/month retroactively to 2020 to receive coverage. Our client cannot afford to pay retroactively for COBRA because most, if not all, of the medical providers she saw between 2020-2022 do not accept Medicaid fee-for-service. Our client is now responsible for all doctors’ fees billed during her non-coverage period, which she cannot afford.
Initial research by our Health Law Unit on the COBRA FAQ on the NYS Department of Financial Services website indicates that employers are supposed to send COBRA notification within 30 days of the qualifying event. Furthermore, our client was supposed to receive a COBRA letter 30 days after her job loss and not three years after the fact.
Our Health Law Unit advocates seek pro bono co-counsel to explore what steps our client should take to address the failure of her prior employer and represent our client on the relevant advocacy and potential litigation.
Our Employment Law Unit seeks pro bono co-counsel on behalf of a Department of Education (DOE) employee whose well-supported reasonable accommodation requests are being illegally denied. We anticipate that litigation will be necessary to address these issues.
Our client has worked for the DOE for about eight years as a counselor or in similar roles. She worked in numerous school buildings with no health problems until her most recent assignment. While working at her current school, our client has developed allergic reactions to something or some things in the building. According to our client, a building inspection revealed the presence of mold, cockroaches, and droppings. Our client submitted extensive medical evidence from her eye doctor, an allergist, an ENT, and a cardiologist supporting her request for a transfer to another building. The DOE continues to deny her transfer request citing that she is not eligible for a “hardship transfer” under her union’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Our client had an appointment with the DOE’s doctor who advised her to resubmit her request for a transfer. When our client attempted to resubmit the transfer request, she received an automated message blocking her from making the renewed request because she already has reasonable accommodation registered in their system. This reasonable accommodation is for an air purifier, which is not adequately addressing her health needs.
Our Employment Law Unit has already reached out to Counsel’s Office at the DOE but anticipates litigation will be necessary to address these illegal denials and seeks co-counsel to pursue further advocacy.