Albany ▲Rochester ▲White Plains ▲ Long Island

Empire Justice Center is a well-established private, non-for-profit law firm, with offices in Albany, Rochester, Long Island and White Plains. It is the only statewide, multi-issue, multi-strategy non-profit law firm focused on changing the “systems” within which poor and low income families live. For more than 30 years, our advocates have worked to protect, preserve and improve the legal rights of poor and low income New York families. We do this through three major and interconnected areas of service: providing training, support and technical assistance to legal services and other community-based organizations to strengthen their work; offering legal assistance to individuals in need and undertaking impact litigation; and engaging in policy analysis, research and advocacy.

Each of these services builds on and strengthens the other. Providing direct legal assistance to clients and working in local community collaborations strengthens and informs our policy analysis, research and advocacy by making sure it’s grounded in reality. Our policy and research efforts help strengthen and inform our training, support and technical assistance to the legal and human services communities around the state, helping to keep them as informed and up-to-date as possible about the legal rights and protections available to their clients and consumers. This support to the community gives us greater insight into how these laws, rules and regulations are directly impacting individuals which allows us to come full circle and provide the legal assistance and impact litigation where warranted to improve, strengthen, enforce and, where necessary, work to change those laws, rules and regulations. It is a powerful multi-pronged approach that strives not just to provide needed assistance, but to have deeper and longer lasting impacts.

As a statewide support center we provide legal education and substantive law training to the legal services and non-for-profit community; act as an information clearinghouse, keeping local staff up-to-date on changes in laws, rules and regulations; and build, organize and keep current several web-based resources, including a comprehensive web site as well as specialized web resources for legal services staff practicing in a variety of substantive law areas. Current areas of support services, all which have a training component, include consumer law (bankruptcy and predatory lending), public benefits (cash assistance, food stamps and child care), public health programs (Medicaid, Family Health Plus and Child Health Plus), public and subsidized housing, HIV/AIDS, immigrant access to benefits, language access, special education, domestic violence, and disability benefits. In addition to providing support and technical assistance to local programs, we also undertake impact litigation and legislative and administrative advocacy aimed at improving access to justice.

Our staff, located in Rochester, Albany, White Plains and Long Island are currently aligned in five major substantive law teams: Consumer, Housing, CASH and Community Development; Public Benefits, Health and Family Law; Civil Rights, Education and Employment; Immigrants and Immigrant Rights; and Disability Benefits. Engaging in this range of poverty law areas allows us to cross-train in related areas and to provide a more comprehensive approach to our policy analysis and education.