Legal Aid Society of Orange County (LASOC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was
founded in 1958 for the purpose of providing civil legal services to low income individuals and seniors. The mission of Legal Aid Society of Orange County (LASOC) and Community Legal Services (CLS) in southeast Los Angeles County is to provide civil legal services to low-income individuals and seniors and to promote equal access to the justice system through advocacy, legal counseling, innovative self-help services, in-depth legal representation, economic development and community education. It has two offices in Orange County and two offices in Southeast Los Angeles County, LASOC/CLS seeks to host energetic, motivated, personable and effective post-graduate fellows to oversee or assist with outreach and litigation in the following areas:
Homeless Outreach (Santa Ana, CA): Orange County also has a significant homeless population. According to the 2015 Point-in-Time Count and Survey required for HUD funding, more than 15,291 people are expected to be homeless over the course of a year. On a single night in January 2015, 4500 people experienced homelessness in Orange County. Hundreds of homeless residents, including children, live in the Civic Center area of downtown Santa Ana, and are in need of legal services and access to healthcare. We would like to start homeless outreach and intake at Civic Center at least once or twice a week. The remainder of the week would be spent resolving the legal issues of the clients, including larger impact litigation dealing with homelessness in Orange County.
Housing: LASOC has created a Complex Litigation Unit to address housing issues. The Complex Litigation Unit intends to undertake advocacy to deal with the need for affordable housing in Orange County. The advocacy will include but not be limited to ensuring that cities and the County of Orange comply with statutory requirements for the development of emergency shelters in their Housing Elements, SB2 zoning ordinances, and implementation of Housing Element programs. This will include advocacy to challenge the exclusionary land use practices to ensure that cities and the County of Orange adopt policies and programs in their Housing Elements and zoning ordinances which accommodate housing for lower income and homeless residents of Orange County. The strategies are based on Housing Element Law and state and federal legislation that prohibit discrimination based on race, disability, and income and other factors. LASOC also assists and represents clients with other housing issues such as evictions, termination of Section Eight subsidies, and substandard housing.
Domestic Violence / Family Law (Compton and Norwalk, CA): With two on-site locations at the Compton and Norwalk Courthouses, CLS provides direct assistance to victims of domestic violence. Victims are assisted with the preparation of restraining order documents, including applications for orders, declarations and temporary restraining. LASOC is proposing to expand the program to provide direct, in-depth legal representation in the areas of dissolutions of marriage, paternity, child support, child custody, landlord-tenant, bankruptcy, employment law, health, tax, permanent orders, and immigration relief.
Victim Empowerment / Family Law (Santa Ana, CA): LASOC is anticipating funding to establish the Legal Intervention and Victim Empowerment (LIVE) project – a holistic legal services project that serves victims of domestic violence (DV), sexual assault (SA), intimate partner violence victims and other victims of violence throughout Orange County, CA. LASOC will provide legal representation, consultation, advocacy, information, education, referrals, and advice and counsel. Most importantly, LASOC will also provide direct, in-depth legal representation in the areas of dissolutions of marriage, paternity, child support, child custody, landlord-tenant, bankruptcy, employment law, health, tax, permanent orders, and immigration relief for victims of crime. In addition, LASOC plans to provide these services through referrals to specialized units within LASOC including Health, Bankruptcy, Seniors, Tax, Small Claims, Foreclosure, Housing, Education, Expungement and Employment Units.
Elder Abuse and Assistance to Seniors (Santa Ana, CA): The Seniors Program provides legal advice to clients over 60 years old on a wide variety of issues and representation in the areas such as government benefits, health, housing, consumer problems and elder abuse.
Civil Matters (Santa Ana, CA): At the civil litigation clinic we help people with civil answers, propounding and responding to discovery, motions, and more. Generally this takes place through the lens of third party debt collection suits and gives rise to opportunities for representation in court.
Expungement Clinic (Santa Ana, CA): The expungement (criminal dismissal) clinic helps people clean their records by allowing individuals to re-open eligible criminal cases and have convictions dismissed. For people trying to get their life back on track by getting a job, the power of this clinic is tremendous.
TO APPLY, send CV/resume and cover letter to Karen Harris at kharris@legal-aid.com. Please include school, fellowship being applied for, and estimated start date. LASOC will also consider hosting Leverage Fellowships.
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