Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada
Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada has provided pro-bono legal assistance for many decades. Originally called the Clark County Legal Aid Society, the organization was established in 1958 by a group of lawyers assembling themselves to provide legal representation to those unable to afford it. It’s now the largest of Nevada’s five nonprofit legal aid service providers.
Evolving and restructuring over the years, the organization largely owes its direction to Barbara Buckley, the executive director since 1996. Barbara has dedicated her entire legal career to public interest law. She was also just honored at the 17th Annual Nevada Women’s Hall of Fame Luncheon as the Pioneer Award Inductee.
The mission of Legal Aid Center has always revolved around preserving access to justice and the provision of quality legal counsel, advice, and representation for individuals unable to protect their rights because they cannot afford an attorney.
An In-depth Look at Legal Aid Center
Christine Miller, the Director of Community Initiatives and Outreach has worked with the organization for nearly 14 years. A friend working in Legal Aid Center’s Children’s Attorneys Project told her about the organization, which Miller then applied.
“I started as an attorney here helping with domestic violence victims,” she said. “It was very eye-opening and incredibly rewarding.” Miller took some time out of her day to share a more comprehensive look at the organization.
“Legal Aid Center exists to serve the poor and working poor with their civil legal needs,” she said. “We assist victims of domestic violence, young victims of abuse and neglect, elderly victims of fraud, people with disabilities, and other marginalized victims of crimes. However, we don’t represent defendants in criminal cases or take personal injury cases.”
The Center also assists victims of serious crimes like home invasions, murders, mass shootings, and other kinds of traumatic experiences. The family and loved ones of victims often face multiple legal issues and other challenges that arise as a result. This includes guardianship matters for minors who’ve lost their parents, people unable to work, financial issues, evictions, foreclosures, and more.
Legal Aid Center Project Areas
Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada assists vulnerable people across many different projects.
Consumer Rights Project
Legal Aid Center provides direct representation, counsel, and advice to individuals through their Consumer Rights Project. This includes legal issues from predatory lending, real estate, fraud, probate, social security appeals, mobile home issues, immigration, and unlawful auto sales and mechanic work.
The Consumer Rights Project also helps with foreclosure, evictions, debt collection, bankruptcy, and consumer fraud. In 2021, more than 35,000 people contacted the organization about this project’s services.
As part of the Consumer Rights Project, the Guardianship Advocacy Program also helps people classified as protected persons. Attorneys with the Guardianship Advocacy Program provide direct representation to seniors, adults, and minors who are living with disabilities and facing or under guardianship.
“Our guardianship attorneys fight to protect the rights of their clients which includes ensuring the guardian is also adhering to their specific duties according to the law,” Miller said. “We go to court and advocate for our clients, many of whom cannot speak on their own behalf or have no one else who will go to court for them.”
For context, she added that problems began coming to light a few years ago involving an unscrupulous professional private guardian who had been given authority by the court to be the legal guardian of more than 200 people. This guardian took advantage of the people they were supposed to be caring for.
“The private guardian charged the client for things they didn’t need, removed them from their homes, and even sold their belongings or put them into storage,” she said. Legal Aid Center jumped into those cases to stop the abuse and bring the issues to the court’s attention.
The Center’s 2020 annual report states that 48% of the guardianship cases they closed resulted in guardianship being avoided or terminated for cause. They also expanded their Guardianship Advocacy Program to include the representation of minors by “championing for their rights and guarding against financial and other kinds of exploitation.” As a result, they represented 490 minors under guardianship.
Family Justice Project
The Family Justice Project works to help in a few different areas. They help survivors of domestic violence break free from abuse and start fresh. This project also helps their clients with divorces, custody cases, acquiring temporary protection orders, and more. This project also has an Immigration Advocacy Program which provides free legal assistance to undocumented victims of crime find a path toward legal status.
In 2021, Legal Aid Center provided services to more than 13,000 individuals through the Family Justice Project. This includes cases, classes, hotlines, and more. Moreover, the organization’s staff accepted 453 new family law cases assisting low-income clients with issues like divorce, custody, guardianship, name/gender marker changes, counsel, advice, and information.
Within the Family Justice Project, Legal Aid Center also operates an Immigration Advocacy Program, providing legal assistance and representation to immigrant victims of violence. This includes representing victims of crime who have civil and family law problems resulting from their victimization. They also work with minors and unaccompanied children of abuse.
Attorneys also assist battered immigrants in self-petitioning the government to remain lawfully in the United States. “People who are victims of certain crimes can legally be on a path toward citizenship if they cooperate with law enforcement about the crime,” Miller said. This is done via a U Visa, T Visa, or VAWA self-petition.
In 2021, Legal Aid Center worked on 3,524 immigration cases to keep families together, from special visas for immigrant children to helping victims of crime so they could help the police without fear.
Childrens’ Attorney Project
Through this project (CAP), attorneys represent children of all ages in foster care. From newborns to high school students, they help kids removed from their homes due to allegations of abuse and neglect.
“When CPS decides the children need to be removed from their home for safety reasons, they may be placed in the county shelter, in a group home, or in a foster home until it’s determined whether they can reunite with their family,” Miller said. “Approximately 3,000 youths are in the Clark County foster care system, and our attorneys serve as the voice of these kids to advocate for their wishes..”
She added that a CAP team also works with youths who need advocacy in school. Legal Aid Center’s Education Advocacy Program helps foster youth and families understand the intricacies of special education and steps to take to ensure the school system is addressing the students’ needs in this area.
“Our staff received calls from high schoolers not knowing what steps to take after school, how to find jobs, or get more information about things like trade schools or scholarships,” she said. “They don’t have trusted adults to guide them in life, so the CAP program provides resources to them, free of charge.”
In 2021, 6,224 children in foster care had a voice in court. Of those, 4,862 were represented by CAP attorneys and 1,355 by Pro Bono CAP attorneys.
Education Advocacy Program
As a sub-unit of CAP, the Education Advocacy Program (EAP) focuses on special education. It provides advice, training, advocacy, and legal representation for children with disabilities entitled to special education services under federal and state law.
In 2021, EAP represented 225 children in low-income families to ensure they received the special education assistance necessary to succeed in school.
The team for this program also helps foster youth struggling in school due to traumatic events they’ve experienced or witnessed, undiagnosed disabilities, and developmental and behavioral issues. In addition, the program also helps students struggling in school because of difficulties related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, they help families and parents, not just kids in foster care.
“Some of these youths are at risk of suspension, expulsion, or they are deficient in credits, and may not graduate,” Miller said. “Our team assesses the child’s needs and will meet with the school to work out a solution. We figure out if testing is needed, or maybe it’s the creation or modification of an Individualized Education Plan, 504, or behavioral plan.”
The law forbids foster care caseworkers from advocating for the youths they oversee at school due to conflict of interest. So, Legal Aid Center steps in to help.
“Students and families that need help can call us and work with our EAP team. Sometimes they have an existing 504 plan or IEP that just needs to be tweaked over time as needs change, and we can assist with that,” Miller said.
A component of this program includes a call-to-action to recruit and train non-lawyer volunteers to become student advocates. The Center is seeking volunteers 18 years of age or older with no personal or professional interests that conflict with the student’s interest to become Volunteer Education Advocates for youth in foster care.
Learn more about the Education Advocate Program or sign up for the next volunteer training by contacting Legal Aid Center at 386-1070 ext. 1446 or by emailing Edadvocate@lacsn.org. View their brochure here and check out all other volunteer information here.
Overall Pro Bono Project
Across all focus areas, projects, and programs, Legal Aid Center works hard to recruit local attorneys to help the organization assist people pro bono. Specifically, the Pro Bono Project coordinates private attorneys who generously volunteer to provide free legal assistance to individuals who cannot afford an attorney.
Of course, good deeds don’t go unnoticed, as Miller explained that their pro bono volunteer attorneys are honored every December at Legal Aid Center’s Annual Pro Bono Awards Luncheon.
“It’s the largest legal event in the state, with 700 to 800 people attending,” she said. “We’re honored to have our state supreme court justices, judges, elected officials, and other affiliates also attend. We hand out namesake awards at the event as our way of thanking and recognizing our incredible pro bono attorneys and volunteers.”
Every October, Legal Aid Center also celebrates National Pro Bono Week with a community-wide Ask-A-Lawyer event. National Pro Bono Week was created by the American Bar association to raise awareness and highlight the need for more pro bono services.
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Other Resources Offered by Legal Aid Center
Free classes
As part of the Center’s legal education program, the organization partners with the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law to offer several free classes to the public. Law students and supervising attorneys conduct these classes to share legal information with the community.
Classes cover various legal topics, including divorce, paternity and custody, criminal record sealing, guardianship, small claims, immigration, bankruptcy, and special education rights.
The Center offers many of these classes weekly, and some are monthly. The Center presents most of the courses in a hybrid fashion and with a couple of them only taught virtually. Miller added that the Center recently started offering two new clinics, one of which centers around eviction sealing.
“In this clinic, attendees learn whether they are eligible, as a result of the pandemic, to seal their eviction case and how to go through that process,” Miller explained. “We wanted to offer this clinic because having an eviction on your record can be a strike against you and make it hard to get housing.”
The other clinic focuses on how to complete family law court forms for Spanish-speaking individuals. Unfortunately, many legal documents, like those for divorce or custody, are in English. As a result, this presents a struggle for non-English speaking people. The Center offers this clinic once a month, but people can also get assistance at the Family Law Self-help Center anytime.
To check out the upcoming available classes and clinics, visit Legal Aid Center’s calendar and select a class you wish to attend.
Ask-A-Lawyer
Every week, Legal Aid Center offers free consultations over the phone for select hours on select days. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, they’ve suspended in-person sessions.
Volunteer attorneys fielding the calls answer questions about family law, tenant rights, small claims, probate, debt collection, and child support.
Available days and times for these calls vary depending on the subject matter. Visit the Ask-A-Lawyer page to view the availability and sign up for a free 15-minute consultation.
Self-Help
Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada offers free assistance at two self-help centers they manage in Las Vegas. The centers provide general information and fill-in-the-blank forms for anyone to use.
At the Family Law Self Help Center, people representing themselves in domestic matters in the Clark County court system can receive legal information and forms. Regardless of income, legal status, or case side, anyone may access these resources. This center does not dispense legal advice.
This self-help center is located in the Family Court and Services Center at 601 North Pecos Road. Learn more here.
The other center, located inside the Regional Justice Center in Downtown Las Vegas, provides people with Civil Law Self-Help resources. There, anyone can access legal forms, case status, referrals to community resources, information about representing yourself in court, and more.
Learn more about this center here.
Miller added that many local lawyers use these same resources because the forms are up to date and have been vetted by the court. Moreover, even if someone doesn’t qualify for direct representation, these centers can still direct them to particular forms and other community resources.
Often, people end up paying others to access these free legal forms, not realizing that they were available free in the first place. This service helps people avoid these unnecessary costs.
Direct Representation
Per their website, Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada provides direct representation to income-qualifying people in Southern Nevada. In addition, they offer representation for domestic violence, family law, immigration, consumer protection, landlord/tenant, social security, bankruptcy, and foreclosure cases.
Providing further detail about this program, Miller explained that all of their direct services are free, from the consultation and intake process with legal advocates to the related forms.
“There are some fees incurred that we don’t cover, like court filing fees, which we try to get waived if possible,” she said. “But some documents, like those for immigration status, have fees involved that are the responsibility of the person filing.”
To qualify for direct representation, people must meet the income eligibility guidelines, available for reference on the Do I Qualify? Page and go through the intake process.
Legal Resources
Legal Aid Center website also provides legal resources for several areas, including housing, health and welfare, education, federal and state laws, and more.
The organization also just released its RISE LV app, a tool for foster youth to connect with directions and contact information for housing, food, education, employment, healthcare, and more.
Per the app’s description, RISE provides up-to-date information and resources specifically selected to help youth in Clark County, Nevada, who are transitioning out of the foster care system or who have already aged out of the system. RISE is also for homeless youth in need of information and access to community resources in Clark County, Nevada.
Download the app through Google Play and the Apple Store.
Aid Provided For Specific Occurrences
Over the years, Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada has assisted people affected by specific events.
Route 91 Shooting
After the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting on October 1st, 2017, Legal Aid Center stepped up to help staff the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center.
This center serves as a place of healing and support dedicated to residents, visitors, and first responders affected by the shooting and helps people access resources to help them build strength and resiliency in the aftermath of this incident.
“We worked very closely with the State of Nevada, Clark County, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to set up a multi-agency resource and referral center to aid people impacted by the shooting,” Miller said. “The partners provide much of the social work and responder aspect, and our organization provides legal services.”
According to their website, anyone impacted by One October is welcome to call, email, or visit the Resiliency Center. Available services include victim advocacy and support, case management, counseling and spiritual care referrals, and technical assistance with applying for online services, including FBI Victim Assistance services.
Legal Aid Center also provides free civil legal services, including legal consultations and possible legal representation for issues involving insurance matters, medical billing problems, debt collection, housing and evictions, family law matters, and more to anyone impacted by the shooting.
The Pandemic
While already offering assistance with foreclosures, Legal Aid Center stepped up its efforts and expanded to include help with evictions during the pandemic.
According to the Center’s 2020 annual report, the organization assisted 7,467 people seeking to stay in their homes during the worst health crisis and rental crisis in 100 years. They also fielded calls from people with questions about unemployment.
Miller added that the pandemic led the organization to rethink its connection with the community. “We began offering online info sessions, virtual events, a series of virtual town halls, and published video-recorded resources on important topics like education which are available on YouTube.”
Last year, the eviction moratorium ended, meaning tenants face immediate eviction if they don’t take immediate action upon receiving an eviction notice. With skyrocketing rent costs, more people and families face the potential for eviction. Legal Aid Center is even currently defending a Las Vegas renter who saw a rent increase of 427% recently.
Please visit the Civil Law Self-Help Center ASAP if you’ve received an eviction notice or order. Tenants with questions can also connect with a legal advocate at 702-386-1070 or info@lacsn.org. People seeking additional resources on evictions and other COVID-related issues can find them on the Center’s Legal and Financial Toolkit page.
Recent Refugees
After the U.S. left Afghanistan in late August 2021, some refugees of the ensuing fallout escaped to the states, including Nevada. Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada offers them representation and helps with their asylum requests.
“The federal government offers TPS–Temporary Protected Status–to countries with known violence or terrorism,” Miller explained. “Coming from a country with this designation means the refugees are protected because they had to flee for their lives.”
The Department of Homeland Security recently designated Ukraine for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Any Ukrainian nationals that have continuously resided in the U.S. since March 1, 2022, might be eligible for TPS designation for 18 months. To learn more about TPS and be screened for eligibility, please contact Legal Aid Center’s hotline at 702-386-1750.
#GetinMotion with Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada
The best way to stay up to date with Legal Aid Center is by following the organization on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Click here to donate to Legal Aid Center’s Sunny Day Fund to cover the costs of specific requests by foster youth. Legal Aid Center is also collecting old phone donations to distribute to youths in the foster care system. Call 702-386-1070, ext. 4500, to learn more or arrange a drop-off time with the staff.
You can also attend their National Law Day event at the East Las Vegas Library on Thursday, April 28th from 11 am to 2 pm. Pre-registration is requested. Register online at www.lacsn.org/aalevent or call (702) 386-1070, ext. 1421.
The event will feature attorneys available to answer questions on everything family law matters, social security, guardianship, immigration, probates, and more. In addition, their other community partners will be at the event to offer more resources to the community.
