North Penn Legal Services

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North Penn Legal Services Newsroom

NPLS to Provide Guardian Ad Litem Services in Luzerne County

Luzerne County commissioners on June 16 approved a one-year contract of up to $185,000 with North Penn Legal Services. Luzerne County is implementing changes on how to pay guardians ad litem appointed to represent children in dependency cases involving abuse or neglect. The changes stem from an audit conducted last year by the state Department of Public Welfare, which wanted the county to increase the number of available guardians ad litem from one to three. Beginning Thursday, two attorneys from North Penn Legal Services can serve as guardians ad litem.

Press Contact

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

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 10,304 new cases. The most significant increases were in employment, housing, and income maintenance.

Closed 10,523 cases, in which we provided direct services that helped nearly 22,767 people:

Litigated 2,239 cases in court, and 630 in administrative tribunals.
Enhanced our clients economic security by obtaining awards totaling $2.39 million, primarily in disability cases, plus $343,645 in monthly benefits, and relieving clients of $8.4 million in debt though bankruptcy, litigation defense and negotiation.
Obtained 715 Protection From Abuse Orders and 715 custody and visitation orders.
Provided counsel and advice or limited action to 6,619 clients.

Turned away 15,400 applicants, most of whom were financially eligible for services.

Made direct presentations to 1,365 people, distributed 8,081 pamphlets and posted material on our website viewed over 45,464.

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).