Legal Aid

NEW YORK - The next wave of union protesters isn't blue collar. It's lawyers, paralegals, secretaries, helicopter pilots, judges, insurance agents and podiatrists. These white-collar workers are not exactly the picture of the labor movement, but they are becoming a more essential part of it as they turn to unions for help in a tough economy as bosses try to squeeze out more profits. "Employers have been downsizing, asking employees to take on larger roles, making them work more hours," said Nicole Korkolis, spokeswoman for the Office and Professional Employees International Union.

WASHINGTON - Eight senators who have spent weeks trying to write a bipartisan bill to overhaul immigration laws have privately agreed on the most contentious part of the draft - how to offer legal status to the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants. According to aides familiar with the closed-door negotiations, the bill would require illegal immigrants to register with Homeland Security Department authorities, file federal income taxes for their time in America and pay a still-to-be-determined fine.

Liberal groups and the American Bar Assn. are opposing President Obama's nomination of Sharon Browne, an attorney at the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, to the board of the Legal Services Corp., which oversees legal aid for the poor. So far, however, the critics haven't made a persuasive case. No more than six members of the corporation's 11-person board can come from the same party, and Browne was recommended for a minority seat by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.

Nearly four decades ago, 18 friends came together to offer free legal services in Los Angeles' Fairfax district. They were lawyers and legal secretaries and law students and social workers, and they found themselves a storefront on Fairfax Avenue. Each month, they chipped in $5 apiece, which was enough to cover rent, electricity and phones. No one got paid a dime. All volunteered time. Theirs was a tiny operation with a name huge with hope: Bet Tzedek, which in Hebrew means House of Justice.

Maria de Leon and her husband, Jesus Batista, were on the verge of homelessness when they arrived at the nonprofit Inner City Law Center on skid row. They'd always paid their rent on time and never complained to their landlord, even as conditions in their unit deteriorated. But then their landlord fell into foreclosure and the bank holding the mortgage attempted -- illegally -- to evict the family. A man who had promised to help with the eviction disappeared with $1,400 of the couple's money.

Nearly four decades ago, 18 friends came together to offer free legal services in Los Angeles' Fairfax district. They were lawyers and legal secretaries and law students and social workers, and they found themselves a storefront on Fairfax Avenue. Each month, they chipped in $5 apiece, which was enough to cover rent, electricity and phones. No one got paid a dime. All volunteered time. Theirs was a tiny operation with a name huge with hope: Bet Tzedek, which in Hebrew means House of Justice.

The U.S. Supreme Court's term ended last month with rulings on sexual harassment that drew praise for their clarity and sensibility. But the court's earlier decision on legal services for the poor was dismaying if unsurprising. The justices cast a long shadow over a major source of legal aid funding by ruling that interest earned on the money that clients often must deposit with their lawyers for short periods belongs to the clients. Were that decision made in a vacuum, it would seem sensible.

Richard Massey's suburban Anaheim home was valued at $700,000 two years ago when the bills for his cancer surgery came due and he had to tap the equity to pay them. The cosmetics company executive had lost his job and health insurance just before getting ill -- the start of a run of bad luck that accelerated with the real estate meltdown and has left the 50-year-old and his disabled wife facing eviction from their foreclosed home.

Poor immigration amnesty applicants can continue to receive subsidized legal aid until a court determines if a 1986 immigration-reform law intended to deny them that low-cost service, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson on Friday temporarily put off nationwide plans to withhold legal aid from amnesty applicants after finding the law vague and deciding that implementing it could pose a severe hardship on people who face eviction and other civil matters.

The Legal Aid Society of Orange County has received a total of $300,000 in federal grants for pilot programs to determine the most financially efficient way to provide the county's poor with legal assistance. An additional $150,000 federal contract also is expected to be awarded soon to the nonprofit county agency. The grants were awarded by the Washington-based Legal Services Corp.

Thousands of residents in Los Angeles' poorest neighborhoods will get new legal help in fighting high-stakes eviction cases involving slumlords and foreclosures under a pilot project approved by the state's judicial leaders Friday. The new Eviction Legal Assistance Center at Los Angeles County Superior Court's downtown civil courthouse will provide legal representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years, according to legal aid groups, which will be jointly running the center.

Federal policy on immigration has tilted toward enforcement in recent years, and the number of deportation proceedings has risen sharply. As a result, the nation's detention centers, where immigrants often are held while their cases are adjudicated, have become increasingly overburdened. One of the many negative consequences of the 60% increase in the number of people held since 2004 is detainees' dwindling access to legal counsel. Having a lawyer makes a difference. A 2005 Migration Policy Institute study found that the odds of success double when detainees seeking to become lawful permanent citizens have attorneys.

Even as the Obama administration seeks to create a more humane system of detention for illegal immigrants, most continue to be held in rural jails without ready access to legal representation, a human rights group says in a report to be released today. In a survey of immigration detention facilities nationwide, the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center found that more than half did not offer detainees information about their rights, and 78% prohibited private phone calls with lawyers.

Maria Perez's fever had climbed to 103, her body ached and she had trouble breathing. After being told in the emergency room that she had pneumonia, Perez went to a clinic in South Los Angeles for a follow-up appointment. The doctor asked Perez about her housing situation. Her apartment had cockroaches and mice, Perez said, and rain came through a broken window and filled the walls with mold. The doctor wrote prescriptions to treat the pneumonia and an asthma flare-up and then did something that he hoped would prevent her from getting even sicker: He sent her down the hall to talk to a lawyer.

Raymond Chavez sat down at a legal clinic at the Midnight Mission on skid row Wednesday afternoon with two jaywalking tickets in his hand. Chavez, 56, who is homeless, said he didn't have the cash to pay the citations when they were issued last year and he had missed the hearings where he could have contested them. The fines had since ballooned to $821 and led to a warrant for his arrest. A city attorney who listened to his story quickly offered a deal: The citations would be dismissed if Chavez attended seven hours of counseling at one of several social service providers.

Liberal groups and the American Bar Assn. are opposing President Obama's nomination of Sharon Browne, an attorney at the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, to the board of the Legal Services Corp., which oversees legal aid for the poor. So far, however, the critics haven't made a persuasive case. No more than six members of the corporation's 11-person board can come from the same party, and Browne was recommended for a minority seat by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.

As part of a city-sponsored program to bring free legal aid to those who cannot pay for it, a team from the nonprofit law center Bet Tzedek will visit the People Coordinated Multipurpose Senior Center on Aug. 24. Bet Tzedek, "The House of Justice" in Hebrew, specializes in the problems of the low-income, elderly and disabled, such as SSI, Social Security and other government benefits, landlord-tenant problems, nursing home problems and consumer fraud.

A Los Angeles-based law organization Wednesday launched a program to provide free legal assistance to veterans who hit bureaucratic roadblocks when filing claims for federal medical and mental health benefits. Public Counsel, a pro bono law firm, will offer the free service throughout Southern California and, in partnership with other volunteer attorneys, in more than 25 states. "Many veterans who return home to their families are facing a system that routinely rejects their benefit claims," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a Veterans Day news conference to announce the effort.

California is embarking on an unprecedented civil court experiment to pay for attorneys to represent poor litigants who find themselves battling powerful adversaries in vital matters affecting their livelihoods and families. The program is the first in the nation to recognize a right to representation in key civil cases and provide it for people fighting eviction, loss of child custody, domestic abuse or neglect of the elderly or disabled. Advocates for the poor say the law, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed this week, levels the legal playing field and gives underprivileged litigants a better shot at attaining justice against unscrupulous landlords, abusive spouses, predatory lenders and other foes.