A person who stands for nothing will fall for anything.
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— Malcolm X
LEGAL ACCESS
What We Stand For
Access to justice is a basic principle of the rule of law. Yet more than 100 million Americans cannot afford legal representation to ensure access to basic human needs, including shelter, sustenance, safety and health. CCLP believes meaningful access to legal recourse is a right, not a privilege.
There are two different justice systems, one for those who can afford it and one for those who can’t. While the Constitution says “justice for all,” the reality is that justice is only available for those who can afford it – 95% of lawyers in the U.S. represent only 1% of the population.
For immediate change to transform into a long-lasting practice, CCLP pursues daily contact with individuals and groups in need of assistance to best respond to their legal needs. CCLP develops these connections through partnering with organizations whose low-income membership or constituencies need legal and organizational solutions, canvassing door-to-door in low-income neighborhoods and conducting outreach to small businesses and organizations.
Our Mission
THIS IS CCLP
Who We Are
Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals (CCLP) is a free and voluntary, unincorporated private membership association of attorneys, paralegals, law students and others who have united to commit time, resources and skills to fight the lack of meaningful access to legal recourse available to low-income workers in particular and now to a growing portion of our population losing their jobs, businesses, homes, health care and hope for their children’s futures. CCLP is all volunteer, from top to bottom, and takes no government funding or monies with strings attached. CCLP exists through the participation of volunteers who contribute their time, professional services and other forms of material support.
IN THESE VOLATILE TIMES
What You Can Do
Learn the science of organizing through participating in a strategy that brings together legal professionals with low-income workers and other allies in the community.
Learn to be an advocate and organize free-of-charge Know Your Law and Legal Advice Sessions with volunteer attorneys providing the advice and education.
Learn to be a public speaker, a writer and/or desktop publisher to help produce CCLP’s independent periodicals, publicize CCLP’s fights and tell the truth in a climate of media disinformation.
Lead out community outreach and build organization.
Attend classes and learn the history and science of organizing and learn a winning method.
YOU Can Be Part of the Solution!
CCLP NEEDS YOU AND YOU NEED CCLP
How We Are Different
CCLP’s efforts are unique because we unite legal professionals and resources with a grassroots organizing drive that deals with everyday problems affecting low-income workers. CCLP believes an organization purporting to represent the interests of the low-income community without daily contact with those in need of assistance, can only guess at the real needs and concerns for any particular community.
We at CCLP see that the fight for legal access, recourse and justice cannot be waged in isolation from an attack on the condition of poverty itself.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. ORGANIZE TO WIN!
RECOGNITION
The Honorable Fiona Ma, California State Treasurer (2nd from left), presents a certificate to CCLP organizers on the occasion of CCLP’s anniversary.
(Click to enlarge)
ORIGINS
How We Began
Local legal professionals, students and other community members volunteered their time and skills to form the first CCLP in 1976 in Sacramento, California. They came together to aid a local organization of in-home care providers, chore workers, as well as the elderly, blind and disabled recipients of care. They were fighting for and gained recognition from the County of Sacramento and entered into negotiations. A $9.4 million lawsuit ensued as the county refused to fulfill its promises to improve the program for both the workers and the recipients of their care. Through the course of this several-year battle, legal professionals and other volunteers formed CCLP.
In 1977 CCLP’s founders began organizing attorneys in San Francisco to provide legal assistance to low-income service workers in the Bay Area.
The Path to Systemic Change is Collective Action!
CCLP Origins in Labor Organizing
CCLP grew out of domestic worker organizing, which quickly expanded to include other workers not covered by the national labor laws.
CCLP has worked in solidarity with unionized workers since its inception. Today only 5.9% of the private workforce are unionized, the lowest level in over 125 years! The public sector workforce is also under increasing assault, particularly at the federal level.
All types of workers face wage theft, safety problems and discrimination on the job, despite the plethora of labor, human rights and safety laws designed to protect them. But rights that are not enforced or enforceable are no rights at all.
LABOR SOLIDARITY
CCLP is a critical legal resource for working families and communities seeking basic work and health protections and the prospect of retiring with dignity. CCLP is a trusted ally for working people and communities whose voice is often unheard. Operating Engineers Local 3 is proud to be a supporter of CCLP.
— Charles Lavery
Operating Engineers, Local 3
District Representative and Trustee
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I’ve seen firsthand the difference CCLP makes in empowering communities and defending rights.
— Greg Hardeman
International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 8
Business Rep/Recording Secretary
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