We work to improve access to justice, with a particular focus on ensuring that low-income individuals have the tools they need to solve problems.
Poverty Justice Solutions helps provide lawyers for low-income New Yorkers in Housing Court. Legal Hand trains community volunteers to offer their neighbors free access to legal information. Our community justice centers work to render the justice system more transparent and responsive, actively engaging residents, merchants, and others in the process of doing justice.We work to improve the cultural responsiveness of courts in domestic violence cases and assist parents in child support cases. And our research department documents the legal needs of specific neighborhoods and produces recommendations for streamlining cumbersome legal processes, such as the payment of bail.
Initiatives
Legal Hand
Legal Hand empowers community residents to support their neighbors with the legal information they need.
Poverty Justice Solutions
Poverty Justice Solutions seeks to improve Housing Court in New York City by training new lawyers to represent tenants.
Price of Justice Initiative
The Price of Justice Initiative helps jurisdictions address the disparate impact of fines and fees on defendants who cannot afford them.
Housing Resource Centers
Through housing, financial, and legal assistance, we help tenants navigate housing court to resolve critical repairs and prevent evictions.
On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, an introduction to the origins, programming, and community impact of Neighbors in Action, formerly known as the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center. Neighbors in Action works to make the central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant safer and healthier for all.
As the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact surges across our country, now is the time to prevent evictions and keep families safely housed. In a new video, learn about how our housing help centers maintain and build secure and safe housing by empowering tenants to advocate for their rights. Staff help residents navigate Housing Court, get critical repairs, and provide them with the tools and information to prevent evictions and homelessness.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced courts across the country to close their physical doors and rely exclusively on video conferencing technology. A scan of social science research shows that communicating over video can alter an interaction, making it more difficult for participants to understand each other, speak up, and relate to each other. This paper presents social science research to inform the long-term debate about video’s role when courts can safely reopen.
Citing our findings of the surging number of people in New York City jails awaiting trial, The New York Times looks at how COVID-19 is disrupting the city's courts—imperiling not only people's health, but their constitutional right to a speedy trial.
This Q&A with Yolaine Menyard and Chidinma Ume provides an overview of the Price of Justice Initiative, which the Center for Court Innovation has been helping to implement with the support of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance.
Drivers with fines and fees for traffic violations in California have a right to ask for relief, but the process can be time-consuming, requiring them to submit proof of economic hardship in court.