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North Penn Legal Services Newsroom

Court Awards Can Help NPLS

The attorneys at North Penn Legal Services (NPLS) provide help to many low-income families residing in Pennsylvania, but this is only possible due to the funding that the offices receive. Court awards are a potential source of funding that can be both easy to attain and very lucrative.

There are four categories that court awards to legal aid programs fit:

Cy Pres Awards: These arise from class action lawsuits where all of the plaintiffs cannot be found and the court must decide how to disperse the residual funds. Increasingly the courts are identifying legal aid as an appropriate recipient of these funds.

Court Approved Settlements: More commonly now we are seeing awards coming as a result of settlement discussions between the parties, where there is an agreement between them that a charitable donation to legal aid is in order. Such contributions are often being offered by defense counsel.

Sanction Awards: We also have cases where the courts have sanctioned attorneys in a case and have forwarded the funds to legal aid.

Criminal Restitution: There are a couple examples of this on the second page of the attached list. These awards are usual thought of as “fines” and sometimes effectively reduce the effective incarceration time of a defendant.

For more information, visit the Newsroom page at www.northpennlegal.org or call NPLS Director of Development & Communications at 610-317-5314.

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Press Contact

Alison Norton, Director of
Development & Communications/ anorton@northpennlegal.org/ 610.317.5308

Pitch a poverty story to your editor

NPLS is ready to field calls from reporters. Poverty is now affecting the middle-class. Here’s why you should pitch your editor a poverty story: You’ll learn a lot about public benefits (such as food stamps, unemployment benefits and foreclosure prevention), meet some of our formidable experts…and gain expertise that could come in handy.

Some Stats

As a regional provider of civil legal aid for more than 40 years, North Penn Legal Services (NPLS) helps low-income people throughout 20 counties in Northeast Pennsylvania.

More Stats

Government funding is our primary source of funding. The Pennsylvania Legal Assistance Network (PLAN) provides 22% of our funds. PLAN distributes IOLTA and Title XX monies. The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) provides 34% of our funds. Additional monies are obtained from United Ways, bar associations, local groups, private foundations, and individuals.

Accepted 10,225 new cases, a growth of 9% over 2007-08. The most significant increases were in employment law in which new cases doubled each of the last two years and consumer debt issues (17%).

Closed 9,634 cases, in which we provided direct services that helped nearly 20,400 people:

Litigated 1,521 cases in court, and 479 in administrative tribunals.
Enhanced our clients' economic security by obtaining awards totaling $2.34 million, primarily in disability cases, plus $351,000 in monthly benefits, and relieving clients of $4.64 million in debt though bankruptcy, litigation defense and negotiation.
Obtained 613 protective from abuse orders and 721 custody and visitation orders.
Prevented eviction and foreclosure for 125 families.
Provided advice and brief services to 5,947 clients.

Turned away 14,500 applicants, most of whom were financially eligible for services.

Services

Services provided to low-income people include employment (getting illegally denied unemployment benefits and back pay and wages due), housing (preserving affordable housing, stopping illegal evictions from public and subsidized housing, advocating for the correction of substandard housing, preventing homelessness), income maintenance (helping those with disabilities avoid institutionalization, preserving or obtaining public benefits, overcoming denial of public benefits, juvenile (representing abused and neglected children), consumer (preventing foreclosure, helping homeowners bilked by foreclosure rescue scams, correcting credit ratings, stopping debt-collection activity, overcoming illegal or unfair sales contracts, avoiding utility terminations), health (helping sick children and the elderly get medical assistance, helping seniors get Medicaid assistance so they can live in their communities), family (making sure custodial parents don’t lose custody of their children, helping abused women obtain custody, divorce and alimony), and education (helping children get special education services to which they are entitled, avoiding illegal or unfair school suspensions and obtaining correct school records).