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If you live outside of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and need help with your employment problem, try the organizations listed below. if you know of any organizations that are not listed and offer assistance with employment law, please send us an email to justice@dcejc.org. Maryland - CASA of Maryland, Inc. handles wage and hour cases for day laborers and domestic workers. Day laborers are defined as anyone who is a seasonal employee or in a job for less than 2 months.
- Maryland Legal Aid Bureau handles all types of employment cases, particularly wage claims, but not ERISA or workers’ compensation cases.
Virginia - Legal Services of Northern Virginia will handle all types of employment-related cases (driver’s license restorations, criminal record expungements, tax assistance, etc.), and civil rights cases, except for workers' compensation claims.
- Virginia Justice Center will handle wage claims for day laborers and the occasional egregious case of a low-wage immigrant worker who is clearly being exploited because of immigration status.
Arizona - Community Legal Services of Arizona has a fledgling employment practice, mostly out of the Phoenix office, but their county offices occasionally do employment. The Phoenix office has a Worker's Rights Clinic for advice and brief service clients, and the office may provide further representation in wage claims, FMLA claims, and other employment cases (except worker's compensation). In order to take a case, CLSA must show the private bar does not have an interest in the case.
California - Employment Law Center Litigation: The LAS-ELC's experienced staff attorneys litigate cases nationwide that they believe will reform laws and policy for the benefit of minority and low-income workers and their families. Cases address diverse employment issues, including race-, gender- and disability-based discrimination. Direct Services: ELC provides advice, counsel and advocacy to over 3,000 workers annually through their Bay Area Workers' Rights Clinics and numerous projects that include a direct services component. Through these projects, they conduct workshops, publish materials and provide technical assistance to disadvantaged workers and their advocates throughout the country.
Connecticut - Connecticut Legal Services has an employment practice consisting mostly of advice or representation around FMLA, Pregnancy Discrimination, unemployment compensation, CNA licensure issues, drug testing, wage and hour, criminal records, and more.
- Legal Assistance Resource Center of Connecticut's website offers a series of employment law flyers (click on "self-help materials" and go to "benefits and work").
- Greater Hartford Legal Aid, Inc. provides assistance with criminal records, unemployment compensation, discrimination, FMLA, and wage & hour, but does not handle workers' compenation and labor union issues.
Delaware Florida - Florida Legal Services is not a local program and does not take on individual employment cases. However, it does policy, administrative, and legislative work in some employment matters, and does work with and provide assistance to local legal services programs in employment issues that they take on. Current issues include unemployment insurance, living wages, workfare and other welfare/work issues, labor pools and other contingent work, low wage immigrant issues. In addition, FLS operates the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, which handles employment matters regarding the farmworker population.
Massachusetts - Greater Boston Legal Services handles unemployment benefits (including related health insurance and job training benefits), wage enforcement, discrimination, job training access, family and medical leave, and barriers to employment.
New Jersey New Mexico New York - MFY Legal Services
- National Employment Law Project has, in the aftermath of September's events, joined with the New York legal services programs to foster, for the first time, an employment law practice in legal services in New York.
- Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund assists low wage and immigrant workers. It handles a small number of cases, mostly wage and hour, and some labor/NLRA. They are occasionally able to take a discrimination case affecting Latinos.
- Urban Justice Center employs an attorney who represents low-wage workers in wage & hour and discrimination/harassment litigation. This attorney isn’t in a legal services office, and doesn't do regular intake, but takes cases from organizing groups and community organizations.
Ohio Oregon - Legal Aid Services of Oregon employs an attorney whose time is split between the farmworker unit and a regular legal services caseload. They currently do intake on regular employment cases and will focus on individual rights/ discrimination cases.
Pennsylvania - Community Legal Services, Inc. does a full range of employment cases, almost anything that walks in the door (except for unemployment insurance, which is done by Philadelphia Legal Assistance, and workers’ compensation). CLS handles issues involving criminal and child abuse records, FMLA, discrimination, wages, ERISA, occupational licenses, and many others.
- Neighborhood Legal Services Association handles unemployment compensation hearings, and hearings before administrative law judges regarding indicated reports of child abuse as a barrier to employment. NLS has started to survey its clientele regarding their employment problems, and is especially interested in unemployment compensation/FMLA cases.
Vermont - Vermont Legal Aid, Inc. is just beginning its employment practice. Its priorities are focused on the following issues: family medical leave act, job training/ Workforce Investment Act, subsidized employment, unemployment and wage & hour cases. They also have a small migrant worker project.
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