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 seeks pro bono representation for a client who was sexually abused by his therapist while placed by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) in a Residential Treatment Center (RTC) for minors located in Westchester County. This therapist previously worked at another organization and is rumored to have been the subject of similar allegations involving those residents. Our client’s adoptive parent is aware of the incident and is willing consider suing on behalf of our client in this matter.

Our client was 16 years old at the time he was living in the RTC and the incident occurred. While our client did not want to cooperate with the police investigation at the time of the incident given his traumatic experiences with law enforcement, he is interested in holding the therapist accountable with a civil action. Our Juvenile Rights staff believe that the Westchester Police Department is in possession of crucial evidence including cell phone records that were provided to them by the RTC and security footage showing our client entering his therapist’s office and exiting two hours later.

Pro bono counsel would assist our client identify any claims against the therapist, the agency who runs the RTC, and ACS who was responsible for this client’s placement. Counsel would also obtain any relevant evidence from the Westchester Police Department and other entities. Assuming there are viable claims, Pro Bono Counsel would move forward with filing a litigation a civil action on behalf of the client. Juvenile Rights Practice advocates are available to advise and assist but will not co-counsel on this matter. Due to the client’s unstable housing and limited means to communicate, this client would benefit from an attorney who is patient and flexible.

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. 

LAS’ Housing Justice Unit represents a client in a holdover case in Housing Court. Because of the unique circumstances of his relationship with his prior partner, the client needs additional legal assistance in order to file a partition action in Kings County Supreme Court.  Legal Aid does not have the requisite experience and is seeking pro bono assistance on behalf of the client.

Our client and his partner were a couple for almost thirty years before they decided to separate. Although the couple held a marriage ceremony in a church in 1996, they did not legally marry once it was possible to do so. The couple lived together at the subject property since 2000 and in 2016 our client and his partner executed a deed transferring the property from our client’s partner to both of them. This deed was signed and notarized but was not recorded. Our client wishes to obtain compensation for his portion of their shared property through a partition action and also seeks assistance with authenticating the deed, thereby vindicating our client’s rights as a co-owner of the property and allowing him to move out of the apartment. Unlike most Legal Aid referrals, pro bono counsel would execute an engagement directly with the client since Legal Aid would not act as co-counsel on the partition matter.

The Legal Aid Society’s Housing Justice Unit is representing a client in a Bronx Housing Court matter and during the course of our representation she has expressed the need for assistance in filing an Article 81 Guardianship for her son. Our client is a single parent to a teenager who has been diagnosed with autism. She is a tireless advocate for her son while simultaneously juggling the myriad of burdens of being working poor in an expensive city. Our client is looking to obtain advice and filing assistance in anticipation of her son’s 18th birthday in October of this year.

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.