Programs
Our diverse programs make us an excellent cy pres recipient. Advancing Justice – LA is a unique organization that merges the work of a traditional legal services provider and a civil rights organization. To achieve our goals of justice and equality, we focus our work on four program areas:
We provide legal assistance, representation, and referral information to low-income, limited-English-speaking individuals. The following are some of the legal services and access to justice programs we provide to indigent and underserved community members:
Asian Language Legal Intake Project (ALLIP): We have set up toll-free hotlines operated by multilingual staff who speak a dozen Asian languages to assist Asian American and NHPI immigrants in their native language. We offer legal assistance in Cantonese, Khmer, Korean, Mandarin, Thai, and Vietnamese. We also serve indigent clients who speak Spanish or English. Callers receive resources, counseling, or referral to a staff attorney or another legal aid organization on issues such as employment/workers’ rights, consumer fraud, housing, domestic violence, family law, immigration, citizenship, and other forms of discrimination. Each year, the hotlines receive more than 4,000 calls from indigent, monolingual, or limited-English-speaking immigrants in need of legal assistance.
Workers’ Rights: We provide both direct legal representation and pro se advice and counseling to low-wage, limited-English-proficient, and other disadvantaged workers seeking to recover unpaid wages and challenge other unlawful working conditions.
Domestic Violence and Family Law: We assist low-income and limited-English-speaking domestic violence survivors with family law and immigration services, including helping them obtain restraining orders, child custody, and support orders, and to achieve legal status without the help of their abuser. We also assist victims of labor or sex trafficking obtain legal status.
Immigration & Citizenship: We help individuals whose income levels and language barriers make it difficult for them to receive assistance with immigration and citizenship issues. With local partner organizations, we provide free citizenship assistance in Los Angeles and Orange counties, as well as across California and the nation with the help our affiliate organizations and other partners. We collaborate with community-based groups to hold free immigration workshops and also take a limited number of immigration cases at low or no cost. In addition to providing legal services, the Immigration & Citizenship Project works with our Immigrant Rights Unit to advocate for fair immigration laws.
Our impact litigation furthers our broad civil rights and access to justice mission by strategically identifying and litigating cases to enforce and expand protections for the low-income, disadvantaged, and underserved members of our communities.
We have engaged in important and groundbreaking litigation that has provided access to justice and expanded the rights of low-income and immigrant communities, set legal precedent on civil rights matters, and changed discriminatory institutional practices. Through our coalition-building approach, we strive to work together with other communities to vindicate basic rights for all disadvantaged peoples.
Among our most impactful cases have been those we litigated on behalf of low-wage immigrant garment workers, which led to systemic change in the garment industry. In a series of litigation, we represented a multi-racial group of workers who were forced to work in sweatshop conditions where they were subject to both exploitative wages as well as intolerable working conditions. Our garment worker litigation, together with community organizing, direct action, and legislative advocacy, resulted in increased corporate accountability and enforcement of wage and hour laws. We have continued to litigate employment and wage and hour cases on behalf of large groups of low-wage and disadvantaged workers in other industries.
We also have litigated a number of impact cases on behalf of limited-English-speaking and bilingual clients. Through these cases we have challenged English-only policies, exposed fraudulent schemes perpetrated against limited-English-speaking consumers, and opposed discriminatory employment practices against bilingual and limited-English-proficient employees.
We engage in policy analysis and advocacy with legislative and government agencies to defend civil rights. This work is conducted through partnerships with groups in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., and informed by the grassroots knowledge of issues facing the community gained through representing clients in impact and direct legal services cases and through community partnerships. Our aim is to advance justice through legislation and humane, sensible institutional policies at the city, county, state, and national levels. Our policy and advocacy efforts are focused on:
- The health-related needs of Asian American and NHPI communities, including advocacy and education regarding health care reform implementation with the help of community partners.
- Advocating for fair laws and policies affecting Asian American and NHPI immigrants, including by monitoring and analyzing potential legislation or policies, advocating for change with legislators and agency officials, providing testimony for legislative hearings and comments on state and federal legislation and administrative policies, and educating communities and individuals about policy developments.
- Compiling demographic data on Asian Americans and NHPIs, including demographic profiles, reports on voter and political participation, and other projects aimed at promoting a better understanding of our growing and diverse communities, as well as making that data more accessible through research, technical assistance, and training.
- Protecting and seeking to advance the rights of Asian American and NHPI voters through election monitoring, redistricting campaigns at the state and local levels, and policy work that advocates for effective bilingual voting assistance.
- Fostering Asian American and NHPI civic engagement through nonpartisan education and mobilization of voters.
We believe the creation of a more just and harmonious society requires the development of community members able to lead in a multiracial, global society. One of our fundamental values is our commitment to strengthening and improving interracial group relations. Our Leadership Development in Interethnic Relations (LDIR) program brings together individuals who are diverse in race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and experience to confront stereotypes and prejudice and practice the tools for becoming effective community leaders. Similarly, our Youth & Parent Leadership Development (YPLD) program develops the leadership skills of immigrant families by working with racially diverse youth in Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley schools and by providing multilingual parent-training programs for Asian and Latino immigrants to help them advocate for their children and their communities.
