Free Legal Services for Washington
Justice starts with one person. Read the stories and voices of NJP’s clients along with updates to our legal advocacy challenging unjust practices.
Attorney Sam Adams helped a veteran in Kitsap County with his benefits overpayment. NJP’s Veterans Project provides legal services for vets on a wide range of civil legal issues.
Sixty-five families who depend on Section 8 vouchers to help pay their rent received notices that their vouchers would no longer be accepted and were told they would have to leave by the end of October 2016. Notice was given by the purchasers of two Renton buildings who wanted to raise the rents above what the Section 8 program subsidy allows. NJP attorneys Scott Crain and Matt Brady agreed to represent the tenants and raised the prospect of fair housing violations. All 23 families in one building are African American, many are female headed households, and many tenants are also disabled.
NJP Attorney Sam Adams assisted a Kitsap County veteran with a benefits overpayment debt. The VA had not explained to him all of his responsibilities in getting that debt repaid and Ms. Adams was able to negotiate the repayment terms and find the veteran other benefits he qualified for.
Renton renters pleaded with the City Council on Monday for help after landlords at two apartment complexes said they will no longer accept Section 8 housing vouchers. NJP attorney Scott Crain Scott is representing some of the residents and said landlords are not required by law to disclose their reasons for opting out of the Section […]
NJP attorney Scott Crain helped tenants in two Renton apartment complexes gain more time to find new Section 8 housing.
Get monthly stories of the people we serve, updates on our work, and ways to help.
NJP was granted leave to appear as amicus (friend of the court) in an important recent Supreme Court case of Aiken v. Aiken, Supreme Court No.92631-0. In Aiken, a father challenged entry of a domestic violence protection order and sought cross-examination of his teenage daughter, who had attempted suicide to avoid visitation with the abusive […]
In a victory for indigent disabled people throughout the state, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that federal law prohibits courts from ordering defendants to pay court imposed Legal Financial Obligations if the person’s only source of income is social security disability benefits. The court added: “…A person's present inability to meet their own basic needs is not only relevant, but crucial to determining whether paying LFOs would create a manifest hardship.” City of Richland v. Wakefield.
NJP CLEAR and King County Debt Clinic advocates contacted the WA Attorney General’s Office Wing Luke Civil Rights Unit after seeing a pattern of egregious abuse in used car sales involving primarily Spanish speaking clients statewide. Abuse of low-income individuals in used car sales is widespread and has serious consequences for the car buyer seeking affordable and reliable transportation for work, and also creates dangerous situations for the clients, their families, and the driving public when cars malfunction on the road.
In another case to enforce provisions of domestic violence protection laws, NJP joined Legal Voice in a motion seeking publication of a Court Appeals (Div. II) decision “that the trial court abused its discretion when it declined to enter a finding… [of] a domestic violence history because it wanted to protect” the perpetrator from collateral […]
A 46-year-old Auburn man with a lengthy history of domestic-violence convictions is accused of fatally shooting his estranged girlfriend after she refused to reconcile with him. He had recently been released from jail after an earlier domestic-violence incident involving her.