Supporting Small Businesses

The economic impact of the pandemic hit small businesses extremely hard. Owners and their families sought assistance with navigating issues including insurance, commercial leases, bankruptcy, employment, contracts, and tax. Working with our Community Development Project, volunteers from various firms created fact sheets, in both English and Spanish, as well as providing telephonic advice and assistance. Participating firms included:

Cooley LLP

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Mayer Brown LLP

Morrison & Foerster LLP

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Protecting the Medically Vulnerable

Individuals in immigration detention across the nation were and continue to be held in overcrowded facilities, where COVID-19 is known to run rampant and PPE supplies can be dangerously insufficient. Our Immigration Law Unit advocated tenaciously on behalf of the individuals and were joined by volunteers from several law firm partners to bring petitions for writs of habeas corpus on behalf of clients at extreme risk for contracting COVID-19. Writs were filed not only in New York City, but also in New Jersey and Buffalo since clients are detained outside of the city.

In addition to working on behalf of immigrants held in detention, volunteer attorneys worked closely with our Prisoners’ Rights Project, Criminal Appeals Bureau, and Special Litigation Unit, to bring writs and clemency petitions for clients at Rikers Island and in numerous state prisons with medically documented conditions that placed them at grave risk of death should they be exposed to COVID-19. Participating firms included:

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Fragomen

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Proskauer Rose LLP

Defending the Rights of Tenants & Students

In order to ensure clients can maintain adequate and affordable housing, we partnered with leaders in the legal community to promote safe access to housing and landlord tenant court, eligibility for appropriate subsidies and maintenance of proper habitability standards.

Shelter conditions create numerous obstacles for children to secure a sound education and the closing of schools due to the pandemic only exacerbated the issue. Through our advocacy, the Department of Education provided students with iPads for remote learning, but without reliable internet access in shelters, students continue to see interruptions in their instruction and fall farther behind their peers. After months of advocacy, volunteer attorneys worked with our Homeless Rights and Education Law Projects to issue a demand letter that the Department of Homeless Services provide Wi-Fi access to all students in shelters throughout the city. Participating firms included:

Cooley LLP

DLA Piper LLP

Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP

Calling For Police Reform & Accountability

As demonstrators calling for police reform and accountability following the murder of George Floyd were met with violence at the hands of the NYPD, our law firm partners joined us in our efforts to ensure individual’s rights were protected and their voices heard.

Led by Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, who provided technical and administrative support, as well as direct client assistance, nineteen partner firms signed on to staff our Cop Accountability Project (CAP) Civilian Complaint Clinic – a commitment which is ongoing. Volunteers, trained by CAP, support protesters with legal advice and assistance on filing civil claims for relief with the CCRB.

For years, police brutality and misconduct were veiled in secrecy behind Civil Rights Law Section 50-a, a state law that purported to protect the privacy of law enforcement by denying public access to disciplinary reports. After years of advocacy, in 2020 our organization, along with community partners, including Citizens United For Police Reform, were able to have the state legislature overturn 50-a. This victory could not have been accomplished, and the ongoing preservation efforts possible without the years-long assistance of pro bono attorneys. Participating firms included:

Each year approximately three thousand volunteers from over seventy law firms provide pro bono assistance to support the work of the staff of The Legal Aid Society. We thank the individuals and the law firms who share our commitment to defend our clients and communities of color and to dismantle the hidden, systemic barriers that can prevent them from thriving.