Our Work

Each year NLSLA provides free assistance to more than 150,000 individuals and families through innovative projects that expand access to justice and address the most critical needs of people living in poverty throughout Los Angeles.

At NLSLA, we see the law as a powerful tool to fight for individual rights and social change. Our work aims to unravel entrenched disparities that have resulted from longstanding injustice, systemic racism and institutionalized inequality.

NLSLA attorneys—based in offices, courthouses and clinics throughout the county—specialize in areas of the law that disproportionately impact low-income people, including affordable housing and eviction defense, access to public benefits, support for domestic violence victims, access to healthcare, worker and consumer rights, and employment and training.

Our advocates work with doctors to improve individual and community health, help families maintain income security during tough economic times, fight unlawful evictions and prevent homelessness, help survivors of domestic violence and victims of special crimes, and engage in legal advocacy that leads to systemic change.

Neighborhood Legal Services is particularly known for its innovative programs and collaborative models for delivering services across the County.  Among those are: the NLSLA Health Consumer Center and Medical Legal Community Partnership projects, which ensure everyone receives the health care they need; Shriver Housing Project–L.A., which provides access to legal representation to low-income people facing eviction; Self-Help Legal Access Centers, which assist the self-represented with domestic violence, family law and eviction cases in eight courthouses; Preventing and Ending Homelessness Project, which provides legal help to the homeless in the Antelope and San Gabriel Valleys; and Disaster Legal Assistance, which provides legal services and support to low-income disaster survivors.

Through a combination of direct representation, policy advocacy and impact litigation, NLSLA attorneys work to reduce the effects of poverty in Los Angeles’ low-income communities, support the development of opportunities for individuals and families to move themselves out of poverty, and protect and enforce the legal rights of poor people by ensuring access to our justice system.