Accessing Legal Aid Services in Mercer County, New Jersey

All You Need to Know About Legal Aid

Legal aid is free or low-cost legal services provided by lawyers to individuals who are not able to pay for them. The mission of legal aid services is to provide access to justice in the civil and criminal justice systems and to protect basic needs such as safety, sustenance, housing, income, health care, and education.
Legal aid is for people in the community who face challenges to their fundamental rights, including low-income, minors, seniors, domestic violence victims, disabled persons, and those suffering from substance abuse issues or other forms of addiction .
Individuals in need of legal services may not know where to turn to for help; they might feel that hiring a lawyer would be too expensive. As a result, they may end up representing themselves and go through a very difficult time in their court dealings. Legal aid offers free advice to those in need, plus an attorney at no cost if the case is taken on. It is through legal aid that thousands of people in Mercer County get much-needed representation every year.

Overview of Legal Aid Providers in Mercer County

In Mercer County, several organizations provide legal aid services to individuals and families in economic need. These organizations often focus on specific legal issues or populations. The following is a list of legal aid providers in Mercer County with a brief description of their services.
New Jersey Legal Services – Mercer County Office
New Jersey Legal Services (NJLS), along with federal and local funding, provides pro bono and low-cost legal services to the economically disadvantaged. NJLS provides legal services in numerous areas such as family law, public benefits, employment, housing, immigration, consumer debt, HIV/AIDS, civil rights and juvenile issues.
Friends of the Mercer County Library – Mercer County Law Library
The Law Library is currently housed in the Lawrence Headquarters Library. The Law Library helps patrons choose legal information most relevant to their legal needs, guides patrons to resources that can help them represent themselves, and refers patrons to local legal aid and pro bono organizations. The Law Library has computers with Internet access that patrons may use to research legal information and print documents. The Law Library also has hard copy and electronic format legal reference resources on a variety of legal topics. The Law Library staff also conducts outreach initiatives to keep the legal community and public informed on the Library’s resources.
Lambda Legal
Lambda Legal is a national legal organization that focuses on the civil rights of LGBT communities and people living with HIV/AIDS. Lambda Legal has regional offices throughout the country, including one in Somerset, which service clients in Mercer County. Lambda Legal provides pro bono legal representation to individuals and other legal services groups. Individuals seeking legal aid must have a household income below $35,000 per year in order to be eligible for Lambda Legal’s free services. Also, services may be provided to married couples with a household income of $50,000 or below or two adults living together with no financial relationship and sharing joint expenses with a household income under $15,000 each.
Mercer County Bar Association
The MCBA is the county’s bar association. The MCBA coordinates a pro bono network to assist low-income residents of Mercer County with civil legal matters. In addition to coordinating pro bono resources, the MCBA offers the Lawyer Referral Service for individuals seeking to be matched with an attorney for a private consultation. MCBA also houses a mediation and early settlement programs. Mediation is a way for two or more people in conflict to meet with a neutral person called a mediator, who helps to resolve the conflict. The early settlement programs are designed to decrease litigation costs and expedite the conclusion of divorce cases by providing a panel of experienced matrimonial attorneys to couples desiring consultation and settlement guidance.

Who is Eligible for Legal Aid?

Eligible applicants must have a household income that is less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level. Currently, that amount for a single person or family of two is $15,950 or, for a family of four, $30,000. Each additional person in the household adds $4,060 to that figure. For example, the income level for a family of five in Mercery County would need to be at or below $34,060 to qualify for legal aid services.
Legal aid services provided by the legal services office in Mercer County include help with civil matters, which tend to be less intense than services provided by the criminal branch of the public defender’s office. Such legal aid includes family issues, housing issues, domestic violence, and consumer fraud issues. Legal aid services are NOT available for personal injury cases or other civil cases where you could recover damages. That said, the office will sometimes accept cases where you need legal aid, but your income slightly exceeds the acceptable threshold. Such personal matters could stem from employment issues, as well as divorce, immigration, or small estates.
In addition to meeting eligibility requirements, applicants must call the legal services office in Mercer County to schedule a consultation for legal aid services. Once accepted for the program, an attorney will provide legal counsel, support, and, most importantly, compassion to help with your case.

How to Obtain Legal Aid

Many citizens experiencing tight financial situations may be unsure if they qualify for legal aid services. Thankfully, residents of Mercer County can find help and get answers to their questions by visiting http://www.lsnjlaw.org – a legal aid placement from State of New Jersey. The LSNJ screening tool is free to the public and allows users to see if they qualify for free legal assistance from LSNJ.
How Does It Work?
Very simply, the online application process identifies one’s location plus household composition in order to determine if certain income stds are being met. If that is the case, the applicant will then be advised whether he/she qualifies for legal aid or not. If so, the applicant may be asked to enter his/her Social Security number, so make sure that information on your application is accurate. The program will then ask a series of questions including the following:

• What kind of legal matter do you think this is?
• Which of the following statements best describes your situation?
• What do want me to help you with?
• Do you have any of the following problems?
• To qualify for free legal help, your income cannot exceed certain limits based on your household size. All of your household income is considered, including income you receive from employment, cash assistance, child support, alimony, Social Security benefits, state disability, unemployment, and pensions.
• You may qualify for free legal assistance in a family law, housing, or consumer matter if you live in a county served by LSNJ and your income is at or below these limits. Of course, these limits change from year to year.
• Are you asking for help with a problem that was recently referred to LSNJ?
• I’m applying on behalf of someone else. Who are you?
• What is your name?
• How do you want us to contact you about this application?
• To ensure your place on our waiting list, please provide us with your name and contact information.
• Your information is stored in a secure database and is used only for the purposes of the application and for maintaining your place on our waiting list.

For example: as of FY 2013- 2014, LSNJ’s income limits for a one person household ($19,500) was $3,000 lower than the federal poverty level ($22,530). Finally, upon completion, you will need to hit the "submit" button in order to send it to LSNJ.

Legal Matters Generally Covered

In Mercer County, legal aid providers handle a variety of legal issues affecting low-income residents. Some of the most frequently addressed areas include:
Family Law
Many low-income individuals face family law matters in which they require guidance and representation. This can center on a number of issues, such as divorce, child custody, domestic violence or child support. Legal aid programs routinely provide low-cost and free services for families struggling with legal issues, notably those seeking to escape domestic violence situations. Domestic violence programs in Mercer County also commonly assist with child custody concerns and termination of parental rights.
Housing
Housing is another critical concern among low-income citizens . Legal aid programs in Mercer County handle a large volume of housing cases that involve landlord-tenant matters, and in some cases assist with ensuring Section 8 voucher program coverage. Foreclosure prevention is another key part of housing assistance through Mercer County legal aid.
Employment
Employment is yet another matter that Mercer County legal aid programs frequently handle. These attorneys work with clients who are being illegally denied employment due to race, gender or age. Employment lawyers also assist with issues such as unemployment insurance and wage disputes.
Public Benefits
Mercer County legal aid programs help eligible citizens obtain public benefits, such as Medicaid, Food Stamps, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and general assistance. These lawyers fight government denials of benefits and assist with securing additional benefits.

Legal Aid Success Stories and Testimonials

Many individuals and families in Mercer County have found success through the services offered by legal aid organizations. These stories serve as testaments to the importance of having access to quality legal information and representation, even when resources are limited.
Take, for instance, a single mother who turned to a legal aid attorney for help after her former spouse began missing child support payments. With the legal aid lawyer’s assistance, she was able to file a case against him in family court and secure back payments due to her. She sought the legal aid attorney’s help months later again when her ex-husband refused to adhere to a child visitation order, leading her ex-husband to be held in contempt of court. The legal aid advocate called the client upon learning the contempt order had come down and the judge had ordered the father to pay the mother all of her attorneys’ fees and expenses.
"The legal aid attorney has been a tremendous source of aid and support to this mother, and her assistance has made it possible for this woman to hold her ex-spouse accountable for his repeated failures to comply with court orders," says Kristie Warren, an attorney with Legal Services of New Jersey. "This story is just one example of how legal assistance can help make a family whole again and help the community at large."
A similar success story also surrounds a domestic violence matter handled by the Central Jersey Legal Services office. "We represented a victim and her children in a domestic violence matter where not only could the wife not work but also could not afford daycare because there was no daycare available for children with special needs," explains Mercedes Hetman, a domestic violence attorney with Central Jersey Legal Services. "We were able to help her move from basic shelter to transitional housing with her children and also successfully obtain a divorce and child support so that she could raise her children with dignity and have a little bit of money to spend on herself."
In this story, the legal aid attorney was even able to mobilize quickly to procure pans and plates for the children so they could begin making a home for themselves in the transitional housing unit. "Having the help and knowledge of an attorney to back her up was invaluable to this client," adds Hetman. "Without our assistance, she would have been homeless and back in the cycle of abuse."

Legal Aid Issues in Mercer County, NJ

Despite the various successes achieved through legal aid programs, their capacity to serve low-income individuals in need is being continually challenged. In Mercer County, as across the state of New Jersey, the number of low-income individuals who require legal assistance continues to rise while available program resources diminish.
Funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), the largest single source of funding for legal aid programs in the country, declined by $285 million in 2017, resulting in more than $6 million in lost grants to programs in New Jersey alone. Even as funding has decreased, the demand for civil legal aid services has grown. The Office of the Public Defender’s Mercer County office is currently handling 19% more defendants than it was a decade ago: 5,036 referred in 2008 to 5,811 in 2017.
In addition to limited funding, many legal aid programs face challenges securing competent and retained staff. For four years running, the NJLA’s "Legal Services Needs Study" has identified the recruitment and retention of qualified staff as the primary challenge facing legal services. Staff retention is especially troublesome, as the vast majority of legal aid programs rely entirely on fewer than 4% of their operating budgets to hire and maintain the services of experienced attorneys.

Supporting Legal Aid Efforts

Just as a safety net protects when all else fails and mutates to our own form of adaptive survival, effective legal assistance must undergo its own transformation to meet the increasing vulnerability of its population service. Legal aid is for people who have already lost everything, and at this time in New Jersey, the number of persons critically needing legal aid are more than its available funding can support. The state’s latest budget is missing at least $12 million for legal aid, which means its 2017 intake of 22,000 cases from low-to-moderate income residents will need to be cut and sent away, as there’s no money left to help. The numbers do not even include new intakes, which are known to increase after September of any given year. Last September, Mercer County set the record for the most intakes, so many that the Mercer County office of Legal Services of New Jersey shut down the phone lines while it was bombarded with calls. It took four months for the phone lines to reopen.
One way the public can keep the phone lines open is to contribute to and volunteer with the pro bono programs of the organization. Pro bono is lawyering free of charge. However, one thing a pro bono lawyer cannot do is make a donation to the legal aid office for which he or she is volunteering, which is why a person should consider contributing to the local bar association funds.
Mercer County has an efficient array of scholarship, funding, and volunteer programs that present many options through which a person can contribute. The Public Interest Law Center, Mercer County chapter, provides such scholarships and awards a notable list. Some of these awards were established by local attorneys who have passed on, often as a result of their struggle with cancer, so that their friends, family and colleagues could contribute to the Public Interest Law Center in their honor. Others were given to the Mercy Center and its youth programs.
Mercer County offers a lawyers’ fundraising event known as the Annual Law Day Dinner Dance , which consists of both a Silent Auction and a Live Auction. The dinner dance is the lovechild of the Mercer County Bar Association and Inns of Court. It is held each year on the first Friday in March. In 2017, the Honorary Chairs were Mercer County’s first female superior court judge, the Honorable Patsy B. Delanya, and prominent civil rights activist, George F. Draper.
The 2016 recipient of the Law Day Lawyer of the Year Award was Mercer County Judge Linda R. Feinberg, who is now retired. Judge Feinberg was recognized for her leadership of the Mercer Vicinage Committee on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts. A past recipient of the award is Mercer County Assignment Judge Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina, who is now a justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court.
In 2019, the Mercer County Bar Foundation will celebrate its 20th anniversary. The foundation was created for the exclusive purpose of promoting education, public interest law initiatives, and other charitable works. The first initiative for which the foundation provided funding was Mercer County’s Lawyers Care program, which sets up law clinics on Saturdays at area churches. Not only did the program provide free legal advice to qualified indigent county residents, it also helped Mercer County lawyers fulfill their professional responsibility of rendering pro bono services.
Each year, two high school students in Mercer County are selected to receive the Jersey Assistance for Community Inclusion Excellence (JACIE) award. The applicants submit essays about what lawyers do and what they can do for the public, and recipients are awarded full four-year scholarships to any state university of their choice. The scholarships, which are administered by the Mercer County Bar Foundation, are financed through the Mercer County Bar Association.