As we commemorate the two-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) today, August 16, there is much to celebrate about this historic legislation. The IRA represents the largest-ever climate investment in our country’s history, creating unprecedented opportunities for clean energy savings.
However, we at L4GG are acutely aware that historically marginalized communities often lack the resources to access the IRA’s historic funding opportunities. In response, we have intensified our efforts over the past two years to ensure that the benefits of the IRA reach those who need them most. See what we’ve been up to!
Not enough people are talking about the water crisis in Jackson, MS. On Tuesday, the Mississippi governor declared a state of emergency for Jackson’s water system, the city’s largest treatment plant. Most of the city’s 150,000 residents are without running water, having to rely on bottled water for drinking, showering, brushing their teeth, and cooking.
Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), the nation’s largest community of attorneys committed to human rights and equal justice for all, and New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit voting rights and civic engagement organization in Georgia, today released a report on ‘ballot selfies’, or the practice of taking photos of oneself at the ballot box and/or with their ballots.
A ballot selfie is when a person takes a photo of themselves holding their marked ballot and usually uploads the photo to a social media account to show friends that they voted, and for whom they voted. Ballot selfies are a great way to promote voting and engage with one’s community, yet many states have laws that prohibit them. Advocacy organizations are concerned that laws prohibiting ballot selfies are tools of voter suppression, and another way to criminalize ordinary behavior.
Click here to download “Selfie-Defense Training: Understanding and Reforming Laws that Ban Photographing and Sharing Your Ballot”
The report found that ballot selfies are completely legal in 28 states, and illegal in 13 states. Five states have laws prohibiting ballot selfies at polling locations, but not when casting a mail-in or absentee ballot. Six states have laws governing ballot selfies that are unclear. The report calls for states to update their laws to explicitly allow voters the right to take a ballot selfie, and prevent voter fraud and bribery without curtailing free speech.
Today, a group of Project Corazon clients who are asylum seekers and have disabilities or other urgent medical conditions sued the Trump Administration to protect their wellbeing and safety.
Lawyers for Good Government’s Project Corazon Matamoros originated the suit, which is the first class-action suit challenging the “Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP, or Remain in Mexico)” policy’s discriminatory practices on the basis of disability.
More than 6,000 of us - lawyers, judges, professors, and law students - signed what has become the largest lawyer opposition letter to any Supreme Court nominee in American history. We’re fighting to ensure that our courts provide equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal justice under the law.
Today, in partnership with Alliance for Justice, Lawyers for Good Government submitted an open letter, signed by more than 5,000 attorneys representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia, to the United States Senate objecting to the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. It is the largest known lawyer opposition letter to a Supreme Court nominee.
VIEW THE LETTER HERE: L4GG.org/Oppose-Barrett
The letter calls for the Senate not to confirm Judge Barrett, arguing that the next Supreme Court Justice will rule on issues concerning the health and well-being of every American for decades. It implores every Senator — 53 of whom have law degrees — to honor their oath to defend the United States Constitution and preserve the core tenets of our democracy from an illegitimate and sham process. The letter also highlights Barrett’s concerning record of jurisprudence, which threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans.
The letter will be officially entered into the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing next week. Interested lawyers are invited to add their names to the letter here.
“As lawyers, we've sworn an oath to ‘protect and defend’ the United States Constitution, and it is our duty to take a stand at this critical moment in our nation's history,” said Lawyers for Good Government’s president Traci Feit Love. “The fundamental rights of hundreds of millions of Americans are at stake. Rushing to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett will cause irreparable damage to the public’s faith in the Supreme Court, the rule of law, and our democracy.”
“It is virtually unprecedented for thousands of lawyers, from every state and a breadth of backgrounds, to unite in opposition to a Supreme Court nominee,” said Nan Aron, president, Alliance for Justice. “As people who have devoted their careers to the pursuit of justice and upholding our Constitution, they have made clear that a vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett is a vote to strip away health care protections from millions, eviscerate protections for those with preexisting conditions, overturn Roe, and dismantle civil rights. The legal community is speaking out, and they are no doubt the tip of the iceberg.”
Today, Lawyers for Good Government Foundation (L4GG), a non-profit network of more than 125,000 legal advocates with lawyers in all 50 states, announced the launch of its Small Business Remote Legal Clinic, offering pro bono legal consultations for small business owners to help them understand and act upon the options available under the COVID-19 stimulus package and other grant and loan programs that may be available to them.
L4GG has put together a growing coalition presently comprised of 34 law firms in 30 cities across the U.S. to help staff the remote legal clinics, including Kirkland & Ellis; Willkie, Farr & Gallagher; Goodwin Procter; Covington & Burling; Katten Muchin Rosenman; Miller Canfield; Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft; Kramer Levin; Steptoe; and Cohen & Siegel, among others. Participating firms plan to provide guidance to small business owners regarding funding available through the recently-enacted stimulus bill, assistance in filing for grants and loans available through various federal, state, and local programs, and answers to legal questions in various areas most likely to arise as a result of the circumstances surrounding the COVID pandemic.
The pilot program will launch in New York City early next week in partnership with the City Bar Justice Center, and will expand to additional cities across the country in the weeks ahead.
L4GG will partner with local non-profit and legal service organizations, and provide law firms with the resources and tools required to manage the program in each city. Qualifying small businesses with 25 or fewer employees will be offered free 45-minute consultations with pro bono attorneys who can help answer legal questions in certain areas and help small business owners determine the best path forward for their businesses.
Interested small business owners can sign up here to be notified when a clinic becomes available in their city.
According to reports, the COVID-19 stimulus package passed by Congress will include $350 billion in aid to small businesses. This includes up to eight weeks of cash-flow assistance to qualifying companies.
“Almost out of the blue, small businesses are suddenly struggling for their very survival. It is the professional duty of the legal community to come together to offer advice and guidance to them so that they can continue to provide incomes for their employees, and goods and services to their communities. We are grateful for the opportunity to be able to give back to these hardworking people by providing high-quality free legal advice and assistance,” said Jacqueline Haberfeld, Pro Bono Counsel at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
“Hundreds of thousands of small business owners, many of whom already operate on very narrow margins, are struggling with questions about how their businesses will survive the COVID-19 pandemic. This small business legal clinic can help them navigate this unanticipated economic crisis, and provide them with guidance they desperately need at this time,” said Lawyers for Good Government’s executive director Traci Feit Love. “Not only do these businesses provide necessary services in communities all over the country, they provide employment, job training, and other benefits to so many hard-working Americans. Their survival is essential to the strength of our economy and vital to our communities, and it is critical that we do whatever we can to help sustain these businesses and their employees until this crisis subsides.”
To support this important work, click here to donate.
Today, Lawyers for Good Government Foundation (L4GG), a non-profit network of more than 120,000 legal advocates with lawyers in all 50 states, unveiled its latest comprehensive state energy resource profiles, Ohio, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, as part of its pro-bono climate change program, which seeks to provide the legal resources desperately needed for municipalities to reach 100 percent renewable energy goals.
Lawyers for Good Government’s State Energy Profiles help fill the void in legal expertise at the local level by providing an overview of the legal landscape affecting renewable energy, including obstacles to municipalization, utility commission policies and procedures, sample franchise agreements, and other tools critical for implementing renewable energy targets.
The group has previously released six state environmental profiles, including resources for New York, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri.
In August 2019, Project Corazon (a Lawyers for Good Government Foundation program) launched a pilot program in Matamoros (Mexico), sending a group of 6 volunteer lawyers to the border to provide pro bono legal services to asylum-seekers stuck in the administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program.
The group was able to serve more than 130 asylum-seekers in a single weekend, providing legal guidance and workshops to families who would otherwise have no access to legal services.
Based on the success of the pilot, Project Corazon is expanding the program. Two weekend workshops will be held in September 2019, and beginning in October 2019, a full-time immigration lawyer with the Lawyers for Good Government Foundation will begin working full-time in Brownsville, Texas (just across the border from Matamoros), scaling the program to include preparation of asylum applications and connecting individual asylum-seekers with pro bono legal counsel.
Please support this important work - we can’t do it without your help. Click here to contribute now.
The Trump administration argued in court this week that detained migrant children do not require basic hygiene products (like soap and toothbrushes) to be held in "safe and sanitary" conditions. Lawyers who recently interviewed detained children report that kids are living in "traumatic and dangerous" conditions - insufficient food and water, going weeks without bathing, kids as young as 7 years old being told to care for the babies and toddlers.
Parents and other adults in detention aren't faring any better. In one processing center in El Paso, a cell designed for 12 people was crammed with 76, causing migrants to stand on the toilets for breathing space. Up to 900 migrants were held at another facility designed for 125. In another case, a teenage mother holding a sick and dirty premature baby spent 9 days detained without access to medical care for her newborn. They "wouldn't give her any water to wash [the baby]."
Doing nothing in the face of these atrocities is not an option.
L4GG just launched our Climate Change Resources site, where we're posting the state profiles and other resources prepared by more than 200 L4GG volunteer lawyers in support of the Sierra Club's "Ready for 100" campaign to help municipalities shift to 100% renewable energy. So far, we've posted 3 state profiles, and plan to post another 10 - 15 state profiles by the end of 2018.
To view the profiles, go to the link below, create a member account, and then click on the state(s) you want to view:
https://lawyersforgoodgovernment.org/l4gg-climate-change-welcome
"L4GG’s coordination of volunteers to produce legal research for cities will be a game-changer for our Ready for 100 Program. L4GG’s work will help cities across the country navigate complicated energy policy and expedite their shift to 100% renewable energy." — Jodie Van Horn, Director, Sierra Club "Ready for 100" Campaign
"L4GG’s ability to coordinate such a large group of legal volunteers nationwide fills a deep niche that has been lacking; cities want to take action, but often do not have the resources to create tangible, realistic pathways to renewable energy." — Antha Williams, Head of Environmental Programs, Bloomberg Philanthropies
L4GG would like to thank Jillian Phoenix Blanchard, L4GG Climate Change Program Lead, for her hard work and leadership on this front.
https://lawyersforgoodgovernment.org/l4gg-climate-change-welcome
