Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

The use of taxpayer funding for such organizations has drawn criticism in the past, given the frequency with which legal aid foundations, including the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, engage in lawsuits and issue campaigns motivated by left-leaning political agendas. ²

Background

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles was founded in 1929 when the University of Southern California started a clinic for law students to engage in pro bono legal work for low-income individuals. The organization was one of many local legal aid clinics founded in the 1920s, spearheaded by national legal aid organizer John Saeger Bradway. In 1937, the organization changed its name to the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. In 1977, the organization founded the National Center for Immigrants, which is now known as the National Center for Immigration Law to provide legal services to immigrants, and in 1984 the group founded the Immigrants’ Rights Office to directly represent individuals in immigration proceedings. In 2001, the organization merged with the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach. ³

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles is also affiliated with organized labor and helped to create the Union of Legal Services Workers of Los Angeles (ULSW/LA), which is a chapter of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers 2320 UAW, and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, a left-leaning federation of labor unions. ³

Advocacy Litigation

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles receives federal funding from the Legal Services Corporation, a group which has drawn criticism for decades for funding organizations that use the courts to advocate for left-of-center public policy. Former First Lady and unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was an early advocate for the Legal Services Corporation’s funding strategy. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter, Clinton sat as Chair of the Legal Services Corporation; during her tenure, Clinton actively supported grantmaking from the Legal Services Corporation as a way of promoting left-of-center policy advocacy. Clinton supported the use of the courts as a way to advocate for left-of-center policy, and training manuals released during her tenure with the Legal Services Corporation described the corporation’s desire to attain “power over the distribution of wealth, power over the means of production and distribution.” ⁴

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles received over $32 million in funding from the Legal Services Corporation between 2014 and 2018. The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles took on several politically charged cases during this time period, including working on behalf of a Long Beach City ordinance that would require a landlord to pay tenants up to $4,500 if a tenant decides to move out due to a rent increase or due to property renovations. The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles has also filed many cases on behalf of Los Angeles’s homeless population that critics have said inhibit city efforts to clean the streets and prevent the city from dealing with the homelessness crisis. ²