Charleston Legal Access

“The form 990 is provided to the board of directors for a comment period. Once that comment period is completed and any questions or comments are addressed, the form 990 is filed.”

“Each member of the board is required to sign an annual conflict of interest policy and is encouraged, by policy, to communicate any changes that occur during the year.”

“Compensation for the executive director is reviewed annually by the board of directors during the budgetary review process. The compensation is voted upon during the vote for overall budgetary approval.”

“Governing documents are made available upon request at the organization's corporate offices.”

“Continued from page 2, part iii, line 4a: thousands of our neighbors go unrepresented in times of need because they fall into this "justice gap." by providing legal assistance before parties become indigent, our services preserve the financial viability of our clients in the long term and ease the demands they would otherwise place on social services. These families are dealing with issues that could immediately take them from barely surviving month-to-month to homelessness and outright poverty. Examples include invalid and predatory debt collection, foreclosure, evictions, landlord-tenant disputes, wage theft, and financial exploitation. Cla works to prevent such outcomes by providing legal representation at these critical moments in their lives. We prioritize cases that preserve self-sufficiency by preserving income streams, homes, transportation, health and well-being. Cla provides advice and counsel over the phone for free, in-depth in-person consultations for a flat fee of 50-100, and full representation on a sliding scale. Our sliding scale model provides legal assistance at low, accessible rates of 50-100 per hour (15-30% of the cost of hiring a private firm), with the rate determined by the individual's income and family size. This hybrid funding model where low-rate fees are supplemented by philanthropic support: allows donor dollars to go farther and enables our attorneys to access more clients and increase our impact in south carolina; ensures that clients are invested and engaged in their cases, and that we are pursuing only claims that both we and our clients think are worth the resources; and gives clients a sense of agency in their cases that we encourage and support. They are paying for our services, have control over their case, and are entitled to high quality representation. Cla took its first client in february 2016 and since then, we have been steadily expanding to meet the demand for our services. We have increased our staff from one attorney to 4 and at the end of 2021, we hired a development manager. In addition, we have expanded our practice areas to include a wide range of civil matters including, housing, landlord tenant, property, elder law, guardianships, conservatorships, probate, victims' rights and most recently, family law. Further, since opening our doors in february 2016, we have assisted over 900 individuals, families, and small business, with a direct financial impact of over 2.5 million. Preserving over 2 million in assets was a significant milestone for cla and for the community we serve as it demonstrates that by representing south carolinians at critical moments in their lives, we are preserving substantial assets for individuals and families and preventing them from falling into poverty. Every year we set a goal to increase the number of families served and our impact. In 2021, we closed 175 matters with a direct financial impact of 720,705, as well as non-financial outcomes, including assisting 45 households with their family law matters. This was a 53% increase from last year. In addition, we prevented 49 evictions through housing court. In 2022, our goal is to increase the number of households we serve by 20% and expect to close 211 matters.”

“BAD DEBTS -5,153”