Legal Services / Legal Aid

The Legal Services Corporation distributes federal grant funding to civil legal services programs across the nation and in federal territories. Local grantees of LSC funding are Legal Action of Wisconsin and Judicare. All other firms listed below rely on other sources of funding including volunteerism, grants, and donor support. Please consider increasing access to justice by donating your time, talent and financial resources to one of these local organizations, or through the Wisconsin Equal Justice Fund. Criminal defense of the indigent is primarily funded through state and federal contracts to the State Public Defenders Office and the nonprofit Federal Defenders of Wisonsin, Inc.

Civil Public Interest Law Firms in Milwaukee Area

Advocacy and Benefits Counseling for Health is a Wisconsin-based nonprofit public interest law firm dedicated to ensuring health care access for children and families, particularly those with special needs or who are at risk. ABC for Health's mission is to provide health care consumers with the information, advocacy tools, legal services, and expert support they need to navigate through America's complex and confusing health care financing system.

AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin Legal Services
http://www.arcw.org/legal.htm

The ARCW legal services program is led by two attorneys solely dedicated to representing and counseling people with HIV/AIDS on a wide array of legal matters regardless of their ability to pay. Our attorneys work to resolve legal issues, end discrimination and fight for the rights of people with HIV/AIDS in courtrooms across Wisconsin. ARCW attorneys specialize in the complex legal issues associated with HIV/AIDS including confidentiality, disability benefits, power of attorney for health care, bankruptcy, wills and guardianships.

American Civil Liberties Union - Wisconsin
http://www.aclu-wi.org/

The ACLU is the nation's primary advocate of an individual's civil rights and civil liberties as guaranteed by the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Since 1920, the ACLU has maintained that civil liberties must be respected and it has made it its mission to fight civil liberties violations wherever and whenever they occur. The ACLU is best known for our litigation efforts; many of our ground-breaking cases have changed lives and made history. We also work for change through public education, community activism, public policy analysis, and governmental lobbying. This includes our Youth and Civil Liberties Council, our litigation program, or our lobbying effort in Madison.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Immigration Legal Services Project
http://www.archmil.org/resources/showresource.asp?ID=493

A broad-based immigration legal service project that assists immigrants and their families in completing immigration forms, translates documents required for the INS, provides legal representation in immigration court, provides education to immigrant groups on naturalization, adjustment of status and family-based immigration. Private attorneys are asked to accept an occasional pro bono referral in their area of expertise, including providing legal assistance outside the area of immigration.

Centro Legal
http://www.centrolegalwisconsin.org/

Centro Legal's mission is to provide efficient and effective in-court legal representation to the large number of low-income and non-English speaking litigants without access to attorneys in Milwaukee County's Family and Misdemeanor courts.
Centro Legal concentrates its efforts on the serving the greatest need by providing in-court representation for family and misdemeanor cases within Milwaukee's court system. We believe that our clients, and society as a whole, are better served when they financially contribute toward this mission as they are able. Centro Legal has taken a serious approach to business by building an able bodied staff of bi-lingual lawyers and support personnel who are willing to keep salaries reasonable and are conscious of client costs.

Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups - Elder Law Center
http://www.cwag.org/legal

CWAG's Elder Law Center is a nationally-recognized provider of legal resources and services to Wisconsin's seniors and professionals who work with the elderly. With a staff of attorneys, benefit specialists, paralegals and support staff, the ELC provides training and assistance to benefit specialists in 65 of Wisconsin's 72 counties and houses the Dane County Benefit Specialist Program providing direct legal assistance to seniors in Dane County with problems and questions on public benefits and other elder law issues. The ELC also operates guardianship projects, works on issues of consumer protection, public policy, elder abuse prevention, Medicare integrity, pension rights and other legal issues important to the elderly and their families.

Disability Rights Wisconsin / Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy
http://www.disabilityrightswi.org/
http://www.w-c-a.org/

The Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy (WCA) is a private, nonprofit agency chosen by Wisconsin's Governor to provide protection and advocacy for people with disabilities throughout the state. WCA is completely independent of state government and direct service providers. WCA works throughout the state with individual consumers, their families, human service and other professionals, and policymakers who make and implement decisions on disability rights.

Esperanza Unida Legal Support Services
http://www.esperanzaunida.org/

Esperanza Unida was organized in 1971 to represent Latino workers in workman's compensation and unemployment insurance hearings. Esperanza Unida continues to provide these services today through the Legal Resource Center. In addition to these services, our on staff attorney also lends part of her time to the Student Support Services to assist Esperanza Unida's students in matters including driver's license reinstatement, utility shut-offs, landlord-tenant matters, and similar legal issues that require resolution to ensure successful economic independence for our students.

Kids Matter, Inc.
http://www.kidsmatterinc.org

Kids Matter, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving life opportunities and outcomes for children in foster and kinship care in Milwaukee County. Legal assistance programs assist children who have been victims of crime or abuse with many issues that require legal expertise. The One Child, One Lawyer program assists caregivers to access benefits and obtain guardianships. Kids Matter also runs the Milwaukee Court Appointed Special Advocate program to advocate for children in the foster care system.

Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee
http://www.lasmilwaukee.com/

The Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee was founded in 1916 "to do all things necessary for the prevention of injustice." We are one of the nation's oldest, continuously operating, public interest law firms. Each year the Society provides free legal services to 8,000 of Milwaukee's most vulnerable residents: abused and neglected children, developmentally disabled adults, persons living with HIV/AIDS, battered women, immigrants, elderly, prisoners, mentally ill, physically impaired, unemployed, and homeless - all of whom are too poor to afford legal counsel. In addition to representing individuals and families, the Legal Aid Society also challenges patterns and practices of abusive behavior by large corporations and governmental entities through litigation of class action and major impact cases.

Legal Action of Wisconsin
http://www.badgerlaw.net/Home/PublicWeb/LAW

Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc. is the largest staff-based provider of civil legal services for low-income Wisconsin persons. Our priorities are based on the most crucial needs of our clients - safe and affordable housing, adequate income and nutrition, access to health care, preservation of the family and protection from domestic violence. Through direct representation and training and education programs, we are helping clients break the cycle of poverty.

Midwest Environmental Advocates
http://www.midwestadvocates.org/index.html

Midwest Environmental Advocates is the first and only non-profit environmental law center in Wisconsin. MEA provides legal and technical support to grassroots groups that are working for environmental justice in the Western Great Lakes region.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
http://www.naacp-milwaukee.com/

The Milwaukee Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has as its mission to ensure the political, education, social and economic civil rights of all minority persons living in the city of Milwaukee. The Legal Redress Committee assists individuals with complaints in employment, housing, and individual encountering difficulty in receiving various benefits. In addition, the committee seeks legal settlements on behalf of the NAACP.

Wisconsin Judicare & Judicare Indian Law Office
http://www.judicare.org/

Wisconsin Judicare, Inc. is a non-profit law firm dedicated to equal access to justice for northern Wisconsin's residents. Located in downtown Wausau's Historic Washington Square, Wisconsin Judicare, Inc. acts as the civil legal service provider for Wisconsin's northern thirty-three counties and eleven federally recognized Indian tribes. From its inception, Wisconsin Judicare emphasized utilization of the private bar to represent low-income persons and provide eligible clients the freedom to choose their attorneys. The Indian Law Office provides representation to low income Native Americans in civil matters involving Indian law issues. Additionally, Judicare's Indian Law Office provides legal assistance to Indian tribes on a variety of tribal projects through contracts and agreements with individual tribes (e.g. tribal code development, lay advocate training, tribal/state judicial relations).

Criminal Public Interest Law Firms in Milwaukee Area

Wisconsin Office of the State Public Defender
http://www.wisspd.org

The mission of the Office of State Public Defender is to enhance the quality of justice throughout Wisconsin by providing high quality, compassionate, and cost-effective legal representation, protecting the rights of the accused, and advocating as a criminal justice partner for effective defender services and a fair and rational criminal justice system. The Office of the State Public Defender (SPD) is an independent state agency charged by Wisconsin Statutes Chapter 977 with providing legal representation to indigent clients in criminal and certain civil cases. Created in 1965 as an appellate program within the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the SPD was transferred to the executive branch in 1977 and its mandate expanded to provide trial court defense services.

Federal Defenders of Wisconsin
http://www.fdswi.org/index.html

Federal Defender Services of Wisconsin, Inc. began as a charitable, non-profit Wisconsin corporation in 1999. So it remains. On August 2, 2000, it opened its doors as the first law office in Wisconsin history dedicated to serving client who cannot afford to hire a lawyer in a federal criminal case. Federal Defender Services opened a Green Bay branch in Summer 2003, and a Madison branch in Winter 2005. Federal Defender Services is not part of the government. It is a private corporation without shareholders. A board of directors of distinguished lawyers in private practice and in academia sets policy for the work of the lawyers and support staff at Federal Defender Services. Our mission is to provide a defense as good as or better than wealthy clients can buy.