The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry Explained
Catholic Legal Assistance Ministries serve as "safe havens" for the low-income persons and families in need of assistance with legal matters. In 1971 the American bishops established the Catholic Legal Assistance Corporation to evaluate the needs of legal assistance for the poor, and in June 1972 the first legal assistance ministry was opened in San Francisco. The program began with volunteer attorneys who provided legal services to persons of low income. These volunteer-based programs experienced phenomenal growth in the first few years, and the ministry was incorporated in 1978, becoming Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry (CLAM).
Today, CLAM includes 97 different affiliates, including parishes, inter-parish collaboratives, courts, home and hospital visitation programs and Catholic Charities in 43 dioceses , spanning 13 states and territories. CLAM provides a range of free or reduced-fee legal services to the poor: advocacy for low-income individuals and families in poverty, referral to appropriate educational, health care or faith based services, and direct legal services through workshops, clinics and other devices.
CLAM provides assistance by responding to requests from parishes, religious congregations, church-sponsored outreach and social service agencies. CLAM works with, and seeks the counsel of, local business and professional groups, government institutions, voluntary organizations and churches to develop a seamless network of social services. The CLAM staff are not law firm employees, but rather are employed by the Catholic Charities member agency.
The Role of Faith in Legal Aid
The impact of faith on the practice of law is evident in many ways, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry (CLAM). CLAM is designed to be a ministry "of the church", with the vision that "legal help for low-income persons is provided by volunteers from the church community as their Christian response to persons in need."
Canadian Law Help described the Catholic Legal Assistance Society’s role in providing legal assistance as part of its broader mandate: "The Catholic Lawyers’ Guild is an organized group of individuals engaged in providing advice and/or representation to clients in areas of law that do not require an urgent response, where the likelihood of successful resolution of the client’s legal problem is more important than obtaining immediate but limited advice (ie. cannot represent client in a Licensing or Small Claims matter). Our most common client issues are: immigration or refugee protection, temporary resident visas, sponsorship, guardianship, and disability."
The aims of the Catholic Law Clinics at a number of law schools go further in pointing out how faith is integrated into the work of Legal Aid Law Clinics, and identifying where those values and teachings are shared: "Why a Law Clinic? We have chosen to establish the Law Clinic in order to participate in a tangible way in the Church’s social mission: transforming society by evangelizing civil culture. The societal issues that have been the focus of prior clinics, such as consumer law and the growing concern about access to justice, correspond to the Church’s moral vision and commitment to justice and the common good. A basic guiding principle of our Law Clinic is that all persons, no matter how poor, are made in God’s image and have inherent dignity.
After identifying a particular area of law that leads to social action, whether community legal education, free legal advice, pro-bono efforts, or tackling a local issue, CLAM is guided first and foremost by its Catholic values and teachings. This means that CLAM Ministries "respond to the call of the church to reach out and help the most vulnerable in our society – refugees and newcomers, the homeless, the impoverished and marginalized, the young and the elderly, racialized communities, First Nations peoples and others. In doing so, CLAM embodies Catholic Social Teaching and the belief that the work of the legal profession can be more than a job, that it can also be a vocation, a calling to serve God by serving others."
Types of Legal Assistance Offered
The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry provides a range of legal assistance spanning various fields of law. In the realm of immigration, for example, the ministry helps clients navigate the complexities of immigration law and can offer guidance on a wide array of immigration matters. This might include assistance with family-based and employment-based visas, adjustment of status, removal of conditions on permanent residence, asylum applications, and even citizenship matters – all at little to no cost. The ministry also holds citizenship classes to help immigrants prepare for the civics portion of the U.S. naturalization test. In the area of family law, some Catholic Legal Assistance Ministries are able to help Catholic families with issues such as divorce, child custody, and child support. However, the level of support in this area depends on the specific ministry and the availability of local resources. Cases that must be addressed immediately, such as child abuse or neglect cases, may be considered by the ministry for representation, but generally such cases are not handled through the ministry. Those facing foreclosure on their homes may find assistance through a Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry. The ministry may provide free legal advice about foreclosure, assist individuals in negotiating with lenders, or give counsel on government programs designed to aid those at risk of foreclosure. Housing issues for immigrants, such as tenant and landlord disputes, may also be addressed. Other issues, such as consumer protection, Social Security Disability claims and personal injury cases, may be covered by some Catholic Legal Assistance Ministries but not others. Stressing the need for confidentiality, these ministries provide free legal assistance to low-income Catholics in their communities.
How to Access Legal Assistance
People who want to access legal help through the Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry do not need a referral to speak with a North Dakota lawyer. They may call or email any of the legal service organizations featured on our CLAM page of our website. Lawyers are pledged to poverty and service and may not turn clients away because they cannot afford the cost of representation.
Each agency presents its eligibility criteria including whether it will represent low-income people in any type of case or only specific types of cases. For example , Catholic Charities is able to represent low-income clients in divorce matters only when domestic violence is an issue. Legal Services of North Dakota represents low-income people in any types of case but is limited to supporting people whose household income is at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. Some agencies have geographical limitations, such as those that provide services for residents in only certain counties.
The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry agencies will do community outreach to visit with people about legal rights and responsibilities and determine their eligibility for services.
Success Stories and Impact
"The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry (CLAM) has offered free assistance to over 140,000 people since 1971." These statistics are particularly impressive in a time of such scarcity of resources. A recent article in The Georgia Bulletin described a couple’s struggles with immigration issues in the United States after they had fled to the U.S. from their home country for family reasons. To put it mildly, their story has a happy ending thanks to CLAM. CLAM offered these individuals a way to re-establish themselves in the U.S. as lawful permanent residents, thus making a much sought-after return to Tampa cake-walk easy. According to the article, the couple was so happy with their outcome that they have started their own association to help support other immigrants through the legal process. "We’re involved with another ministry to help others in their situation," said one of the individuals featured in the story. While the couple assists CLAM in identifying new clients, CLAM helps new immigrants complete a process which often takes years to resolve. The article also commends the coordinators and assessors for insuring the "details are managed." CLAM facilitates a diverse array of programs in five different locations. Having a solid understanding of numerous administrative programs requires diligent dedication and a strong commitment to the cause. In particular, we applaud CLAM for helping immigrants who seek to live in this country as lawful permanent residents.
Future Prospects and Challenges
As one can imagine, there are uncertainties as to the future of Catholic Legal Assistance Ministries. It is clear, however, that the range of legal issues affecting the poor and vulnerable will only increase in complexity in the years to come. Even under the best of economic circumstances, the challenges presented to people of modest means will grow as the pressures of employment, immigration, health care, education, housing and consumer debt increase.
Since 1979, the Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry has been part of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The relationship under Canon Law Sec. 516(2) creates a canonical administration which is consistent with the mission of Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry. Currently, the institution is governed by a Lay Board made up mostly of attorneys and the victims of violence and injustice. The Lay Board has reviewed alternative governance structures such as private nonprofit status, law school clinics and for-profit enterprises. At this point, it does not see that any of those options will provide a better way to carry out the mission of serving persons of modest means who have civil legal problems inconsistent with human dignity. The options will be revisited in three (3) years or after the current needs assessment is completed.
In terms of operations, the Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry must reconfigure its law office infrastructure. In the past, much time and energy was devoted to maintaining three to four law offices in the largest social service centers in the Archdiocese (such as Christ the King Center in the Diocese of New Orleans or the Resurrection Life Center in the Diocese of Camden). These facilities were of great benefit to Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry . Many clients were referred by the social service center to Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry and vice versa. However, the clientele and the ability to do walk-in interviews has changed as many of those programs have moved or scaled back their services. The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry is responding to those changes in several ways: 1) We are converting our law offices to IT instruction facilities to help our clients become more computer literate; 2) we are continuing the practice of extensive partnerships with community-based organizations to provide legal help at various sites and greatly expand our geographic coverage, and 3) we are focusing technology based casework systems which allow lawyers and staff to work remotely from any location.
Other challenges will have to do with the nature of the cases we handle. Catholic Legal Assistance Ministries have a long tradition of handling individual adult legal remedies such as divorce, guardianship, bankruptcy, housing, child custody and consumer fraud. The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry has not traditionally handled child protection cases where the Commonwealth seeks removal of children from the custody of their biological parents. The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry overwhelmingly serves immigrant and refugee communities. The U.S. child protective services model is built on the presumption that children are best off with their biological families rather than being removed to a foster situation. The conclusion is that the U.S. approach to child protection is not consistent with the Catholic approach to the sanctity of family life. The Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry is actively considering the value of modifying its stance on child protective services.