Legal Aid Justice Center

The Center was founded in 1967 as the Charlottesville-Albemarle Legal Society (CALAS) with federal funding from the Legal Services Corporation, a government-funded legal fund for low-income defendants. Over the following decades, Legal Aid Justice Center attracted more government funding from federal, county, and city governments. In 1998, the Center spun off much of its legal assistance operations into Piedmont Legal Services which later merged with the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, which is largely funded by the Legal Services Corporation. ²

Since the late 1990s, the Center has transitioned its programs to mix legal services with political advocacy. Its programs support left-of-center immigration policies, increased leniency in the criminal justice system, increased school funding, new civil rights laws, and other policies. Despite engaging in political advocacy, the Center still receives over $2 million in annual funding from federal, county, and city governments. ^{3 2 4 5}

History

In 1967, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Legal Aid Society (CALAS) was established by a group of lawyers and law students to provide pro bono legal services to local low-income individuals. From the start, the Society was dependent upon federal funding with its lawyers providing free services due to funding from the Legal Services Corporation. In 1970, the Society’s Lawyers began to receive funding from the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. ⁶

In 1978, the Society expanded its services to rural areas around Albemarle County. In 1982, the city government of Charlottesville and the county government of Albemarle both began subsidizing the Society. ⁶

In 1996, Congressional Republicans cut the budget of the Legal Services Corporation by more than one-third and added new regulatory requirements for the disbursement of federal funds to nonprofits. ⁷ In response, two years later, the Society formed Piedmont Legal Services, an independent corporation with an overlapping board which could better comply with regulatory requirements to receive federal funds. ⁶

In 2001, the Society merged with Southside Virginia Legal Services to form the Legal Aid Justice Center. In response to federal requests to consolidate regional grant recipients, Piedmont Legal Services merged into the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society with federally funded offices in three cities. Today, the Legal Aid Justice Center and Central Virginia Legal Aid Society work closely together, with the latter handling the bulk of the legal work and the former focusing more on political advocacy. ⁶

Activities

The Legal Aid Justice Center maintained five “programs” as of July 2020: civil rights and racial justice, economic justice, justchildren, immigrant advocacy, and COVID-19 advocacy. Each program both provided pro bono legal services and engages in political activism through community organization on behalf of left-of-center and left-wing policy goals. The Center also worked with numerous other left-of-center nonprofits towards these ends. ⁸ The Center had expanded its programs considerably over the years just prior to 2020, with only economic justice, immigrant advocacy, and “justchildren” existing in 2016. .⁹

As of 2025, the Legal Aid Justice Center was operating seven program areas: consumer and medical debt; criminal legal system; healthcare and public benefits; housing; immigration; workplace; and youth, family, and schools. ³

Civil Rights and Racial Justice

The Center advocates for increased leniency in criminal punishment and pro-defendant changes to the administration of criminal justice, including reducing bail amounts, reducing criminal fines, and eliminating numerous Virginia criminal laws. According to the program’s webpage, civil rights and racial justice has always been the Center’s primary purpose. ¹⁰

In 2025, the organization was focused on “building community power,” “ending police misconduct,” working to abolish or drastically decrease Virginia’s pretrial bail system, working to abolish or drastically decrease court costs, working to expunge criminal records in the name of felon justice, and fighting what it terms “mass incarceration.” ¹¹

The Center created the Our Rights Matter collaboration with RISE for Youth and Peter Paul to educate young people on what to do when interacting with law enforcement. ¹¹ It advised them to refuse to talk to police officers during voluntary interactions, ask the officers if they were being detained, and refuse to allow police officers to search their belongings. ¹²

The Center has partnerships with the People’s Coalition and the Richmond Transparency and Accountability Project (RTAP) to “strengthen community power over-policing” and “end police misconduct.” ¹¹

Left-of-Center Economics

The Center advocates for increased left-wing economic regulations, including tighter oversight on banks, increasing the Virginia minimum wage, increasing worker safety regulations, and restricting short-term lenders. ¹³

One of the Center’s biggest targets has been the ability of Virginia’s courts to suspend driver’s licenses in response to the failure to pay court fines. The Center filed a suit against the government in 2016 challenging the practice. In 2018, the Center won the case and the courts ordered the cessation of the policy. The Center continued legislative advocacy until on July 1, 2020, a law took effect that banned the suspension of driver’s licenses due to unpaid fines. ¹⁴

Youth, Families, and Schools

The Center advocates for the Virginia state government to increase funding for schools and teacher pay with a special emphasis on equalizing expenditure per-pupil across regions. The Center has partnered with numerous labor-union-aligned advocacy groups on this advocacy effort, including the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, New Virginia Majority, Virginia Educators United, and Virginia Excels. ¹⁵

The Center operates a pro bono project for special education needs in which it trains attorneys to provide representation to those seeking to make state special education complaints, engage in mediation, undergo due process hearings, and register for Virginia’s special education program Child Find. ¹⁶

Immigration

The Center advocates for more left-of-center immigration policies and better treatment of current legal and illegal immigrants. Partner organizations for these advocacy efforts include the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Virginia New Majority, and Virginia AFL-CIO. ¹⁷

As of 2025, the Center was working to combat the separation of illegal immigrant families, end raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on illegal immigrants, and include immigrants in state welfare benefits programs such as in-state tuition. The group aims to end the practice of immigration detention in Virginia, ensure that illegal immigrants face the same charges for crimes as citizens, prevent local and state authorities from collaborating with federal immigration enforcement, and provide legal representation to illegal immigrants facing deportation. ¹⁸

The Center hosts two law student clinics to train students on representing immigration cases. ¹⁸

In 2025, a reporter with The Progressive met with LAJC staffer John Cano, who had previously worked in efforts to get illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. ¹⁹ Cano told the reporter LAJC had received a tip about ICE’s plan to arrive at a food distribution site for illegal immigrants in the Northern Virginia area. Cano arrived with contact information and educational materials on judicial warrants and legal advice. LAJC distributes cards with phone numbers to hotlines with bilingual staffers for illegal immigrants to call before or after they have had a run-in with ICE agents. The cards, LAJC staffers, and the hotline representatives all inform illegal immigrants on the various scenarios regarding federal law enforcement and offer best practices on how to avoid deportation. ²⁰

Health Justice and Public BenefitsLAJC advocates for “health equity” and the reduction of what it sees as legal and financial barriers preventing people from accessing adequate healthcare. Through litigative action, the Center aims to expand access to government welfare benefits including unemployment, food stamps, cash assistance, and disability insurance. ²¹

LAJC operates two Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs), which install attorneys in care teams at health systems. The MLPs help people gain access to legal aid services to litigate against the healthcare system for perceived injustice. ²¹

COVID-19

The Center blamed the extent and severity of the COVID-19 outbreak on the supposed insufficiency of the social safety net instituted by the government. The Center advocated for “aggressive” government action to protect low-income individuals and racial minorities, including ceasing all housing evictions, all medical copays and billing of uninsured individuals, and all tax collection; indefinitely extending welfare benefits; and taking enhanced investigations into potential incidents of racial discrimination in schools. ²²

Nonprofit partners for the Center’s COVID-19 policy recommendations included Southerners on New Ground, ACLU Fairfax, ACLU Virginia, Richmond Community Bail Fund, the Charlottesville and Richmond chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America, Virginia Organizing, Showing Up for Racial Justice Northern Virginia, and Richmond Teachers for Social Justice. ²²

The Center had also been an advocate for indefinitely continuing lockdowns. In a statement arguing against the partial reopening of Virginia businesses in May, the Center called the policy “cruel” due to the disparate impact on racial minorities caused by “systematic racial inequalities.” The letter also claimed that the courts will be “swarmed with landlords” trying to evict tenants and that the reopening was motivated by the government’s desire to maintain Virginia’s status as the best state for business in a CNBC study. ²³

On April 20, the Center sent a letter to the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice demanding immediate action to protect incarcerated youths from COVID-19 after two of the Center’s clients tested positive. ²⁴

Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs

In 2014, the Legal Aid Justice Center and Art 180 created Performing Statistics, a program which promotes art among young people involved in the juvenile system to reduce and improve interactions with police. In 2018, the Legal Aid Justice Center gave a grant to “assist in social justice projects” worth $321,539 (about 6 percent of its total expenditure for the year) to Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, a left-of-center fiscal sponsor for nonprofits which promote climate alarmism and radical-left views of America’s justice system and culture. ²⁵ The following year, Performing Statistics became an independent organization fiscally sponsored by Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs. ²⁶

Consumer and Medical Debt

LAJC litigates against perceived unjust debt collecting practices, which it views as contributing to racial disparities. Its advocates push for the abolition of what they view as predatory practices among debt collecting agencies. ²⁷

Labor

LAJC litigates on behalf of legal and illegal workers to obtain higher wages and other work benefits packages. It helps to build labor union-adjacent coalitions. ²⁸

Financials

In 2023, the Legal Aid Justice Center reported a revenue of $9,594,068, expenses of $11,743,928, and net assets of $11,585,986. ²⁹

Funding

From 2015 to 2019, the Legal Aid Justice Center received a substantial increase in funding, from $7,717,960 to $9,331,581. Each year, the Center receives about $2.2 million in government funding from the City of Charlottesville, the County of Albemarle, the County of Arlington, the County of Dinwiddie, the County of Fairfax, the County of Fluvanna, the County of New Kent, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). ⁹³⁰

Though the Center previously received funding from the Legal Services Corporation after splitting much of its legal services with Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, the Center no longer receives funding from LSC. ⁶

The Center also receives funding from numerous left-of-center nonprofits. In 2019, it received $1,806,418 in grants from organizations including Borealis Philanthropy, Pew Charitable Trusts, and Public Welfare Foundation. The Center also gets institutional support from the Southern Poverty Law Center. ³⁰

In 2023, the Center reported receiving $4,742,024 in government grants. ⁵

Leadership

As of 2025, Angela Ciofli was serving as the executive director of the Legal Aid Justice Center. She became the executive director in 2018 after working as a Powell Fellow and the legal director of its Youth Justice Program, overseeing efforts to litigate against debt collection and advocate for school funding. ³¹