Massachusetts Law Reform Institute The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute was organized in 1968 “to receive OEO [Office of Economic Opportunity] funds for the establishment of a statewide center to provide support to legal services and other advocates who assist low income persons with their legal problems.” Actually, the institute existed long before 1968: it was originally part of the Commonwealth’s... (32 views)
Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, Inc. (MCLS) According to its annual report, the "Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services is a private, nonprofit corporation which provides free legal assistance to men and women in Massachusetts correctional facilities." Originally established in 1972 as the Prisoners' Rights Project, the MCLS is almost exclusively funded by the Commonwealth's Supreme Judicial Court. (59 views)
Legal Services for Children, Inc. (LSC) In 1975 Legal Services for Children was founded as the first free, comprehensive group practice of private attorneys teamed with caseworkers for youth law in America. An attorney with the Prison Law Project, Carole Brill, saw that most inmates had juvenile court experience and thought that juvenile representation would be an effective way to try to change this trend. Thus,... (29 views)
The Legal Aid Society of New York The Legal Aid Society (of New York) is now one of the largest functioning legal aid societies in the United States. It employs more than 700 full-time attorneys, who provide legal assistance to more than 250,000 needy New Yorkers annually. (32 views)
Legal Action Center The Legal Action Center is a public interest law firm founded in 1973 by persons who had been active in the Vera Institute of Justice. Its goals are the elimination of discrimination against ex-offenders and former alcohol and drug abusers in the areas of employment, insurance, government benefits, and housing, and the elimination of the use of lie detector tests by... (24 views)
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR) Formerly the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, the LCHR was founded in 1975, as a joint project of the Council of New York Law Associates* and the International League for Human Rights. Its founders believed that lawyers’ skills could be used to redress violations of international human rights. Originally funded with the assistance of grants from the Ford... (518 views)
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL) The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was created in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy. "Expressing dismay at the lack of respect for the commands of the Constitution as interpreted by the American judicial system, the President appealed to [top] American lawyers to support the struggle for equal opportunity for Black citizens." In response to... (113 views)
Colorado Lawyers’ Committee (CLC) Established in 1978 “by a number of prominent Denver-area attorneys,” the Colorado Lawyers’ Committee is an affiliate of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL). Like some other LCCRUL affiliates, the CLC is financially supported by member firms; in this instance, it receives assistance from 21 Colorado-based private law firms, who make... (31 views)
Children's Defense Fund (CDF) In 1968 Marian Wright Edelman, a lawyer and a veteran of the civil rights movement, and some of her allies, recognized the need for a voice for children, especially those from poor and minority families in Washington, D.C. Many of the founders of the Children’s Defense Fund had been involved in the Washington Research Project, which had further substantiated the need for... (157 views)
Chicago Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. Six years after President John Kennedy recommended that the nation’s lawyers band together to form the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the national group created a Chicago affiliate. The Executive Director of the Chicago committee described the circumstances surrounding its founding in the following way: “In 1969 inner-city riots highlighted the... (13 views)
Center for Study of Responsive Law’s Freedom of Information Clearinghouse In 1966, Ralph Nader published Unsafe at Any Speed, an exposé of safety problems with General Motors’ Corvair. At first the book failed to spark the public’s imagination. “But the subsequent Senate hearings on automobile design, with their revelations that General Motors had hired a detective to follow Nader ... caught the media’s interest” (Council, 1976, p.... (21 views)
Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) The Center for Science in the Public Interest was established in 1971 as a consumer organization, focusing on health and science; specifically, it was founded by “three scientists who believed that consumers needed knowledgeable experts representing their interests before the federal government, just as industry has scientists representing its point of view.” (6 views)
Center for Rural Affairs (CRA) The Center for Rural Affairs (formerly the Small Farm Advocacy Project) was founded to investigate government policies that discriminate against family-size farms or provide competitive advantages to farms that are larger than family size. Its goals, therefore, are “to expose and change laws and policies that favor large farms.” (8 views)
The Authors Guild (Authors League of America, Inc. (ALA)) The Authors League of America, Inc., was founded in 1912 by a group of authors to protect the copyright, contract, free expression, and tax interests of creators of literary property. This action came in the wake of an adverse copyright decision by a U.S. District Court in 1910. (124 views)
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) Founded in 1968 by four lawyers at the large corporate law firm of Arnold and Porter (including an individual who had "served both in the Solicitor General's Office and as an early architect of the [Office of Economic Opportunity] Legal Services Program" (Council, 1976, p. 62), and former Justice Arthur Goldberg), the Center for Law and Social Policy remains one of the... (180 views)
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE) A group of entrepreneurs, educators, and legislators and students who were concerned about restrictions being imposed on America’s free enterprise system founded the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise on July 4, 1976, believing that a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) educational foundation was needed to underwrite education projects. Today the center relies on volunteer... (21 views)
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) In 1966 several civil rights activists, including Arthur Kinoy and William Kuntsler, founded the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), originally called the Civil Rights Legal Defense Fund and later the Law Center for Constitutional Rights. The dearth of lawyers willing to take on controversial litigation led Kinoy and Kuntsler to create a permanent, privately funded... (73 views)
Center for Auto Safety Established in 1968 by Ralph Nader and the Consumers Union, the Center for Auto Safety was an outgrowth of the "Corvair" scandal. After the ordeal, "Nader realized that his singlehanded, sporadic monitoring of the auto industry would be ineffective." Thus, he and the union created the center as an independent (but affiliated) organization "to keep a sharp eye on the... (79 views)
Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI) In 1969 several business and professional people established the Business and Professional People for the Public Interest "as a Public Interest Law Center to serve the collective needs of the Chicago Metropolitan area," including issues of fair housing, clean environment, and effective education. Thus, the BPI is something of a paradox: "it was Chicago's and the nation's... (74 views)
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) In 1913 a group of B'nai B'rith members who saw a need for an organized public effort to counter anti-Semitic actions, activities, and attitudes founded the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith in Chicago. Its mandate is to "stop the defamation of the Jewish people ... [and] to secure justice and fair treatment for all citizens alike." It was not originally founded... (62 views)
Americans United for Life Legal Defense Foundation (AULLDF) Americans United for Life (AUL) was one of several organizations founded in the early 1970s to lobby against liberalized abortion codes being considered by state legislatures across the United States. More specifically, "political and intellectual leaders" founded AUL in Washington, D.C., "to provide a non- sectarian national, educational organization to combat legalized... (207 views)
Asian Law Caucus The Asian Law Caucus was founded in 1972 by an attorney, several law students and community volunteers in Oakland, California, to provide legal services to impoverished Asians who lacked access to the system due to cultural/ language barriers or financial capabilities. In 1975, the organization became a member of the United Way, ensuring that a substantial proportion of... (5 views)
Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) The Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund was created in 1974 by attorneys, activists, and members of the community to use the legal and educational systems to attack myriad problems suffered by the Asian-American community who did not have access to legal assistance. Thus, the AALDEF offers extensive bilingual counseling. It relies on a four-person staff,... (83 views)
Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest (ACLPI) The Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest was founded in November by two Phoenix lawyers-Herb Ely, who in 1984 was honored by the American Bar Association with its first Pro Bono Award, and Bruce Meyerson- to fill a void in public interest law in Arizona. When the center was first established, it had no staff but a commitment from several local law firms to donate... (625 views)
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) Americans United for Separation of Church and State was founded in 1947 to guarantee that the wall between religion and government remains firmly erect. Although the organization states that it was not originally founded as a litigating group, Americans United was formed in reaction to a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Everson v. Board of Education (1947). In this case, the... (73 views)
Americans for Effective Law Enforcement (AELE) Disillusioned by the Warren Court's liberalization of criminal law, several law professors and officials in the Chicago area created the Americans for Effective Law Enforcement in 1966. Their goal was to respond "to the success the ACLU and other civil liberties groups were having" in the Supreme Court by litigating on behalf of law-abiding citizens (Epstein, 1985, pp.... (765 views)
American Bar Association (ABA) Since 1920, when Charles Evans Hughes prodded the American Bar Association into establishing a Special Committee on Legal Aid, the ABA “has been a firm supporter of the private legal ... movements” (Council, 1976, p. 284). (98 views)
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) In 1958, the American Association of Retired Persons was created by leaders of the National Association of Retired Teachers (NRTA) who saw a need for a similar organization, national in scope, to “enhance the quality of life for older Americans; to promote independence, dignity and purpose for older persons; to help to understand aging and its ramifications; and to offer... (40 views)
Alliance for Justice Composed of public interest law firms, university clinical law programs, legal defense funds, public interest organizations, and individuals, the Alliance (formerly the Council for Public Interest Law) was founded in 1975. Its objectives are to focus the efforts of members on key issues, compile statistics, alert members to key developments concerning the legal system and,... (15 views)
Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc After a community action agency released a study indicating that Toledo’s “low income population suffered from recurring and economically disabling legal problems,” a group of local attorneys and community leaders established ABLE in 1969. Specifically, ABLE is “a non-profit law firm which offers legal assistance in civil matters to low-income individuals and... (21 views)