The primary focus of the Community Legal Services Program is to provide free legal information and counseling to low-income workers. Through its Bay Area Workers' Rights Clinics and other LAS-ELC projects with a direct services component, the Program offers more than ten legal clinics and information lines to counsel individual workers.

The Community Legal Services Program also provides focused advocacy to workers who need more than just information to address a problem, but where retaining an attorney is not necessary or financially feasible. In some cases, our trained law-student and paralegal counselors assist a client in negotiating situations with their employer, or assist and represent workers with claims brought through government agencies, such as the Employment Development Department or the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Another crucial piece of the Program's work is public education. The program produces and distributes a wide variety of legal information fact sheets and publications on areas of employment law. These publications are written in lay terms and translated into several languages to accommodate the needs of our diverse client base. We also train workers, advocates, and community service providers to promote an awareness of workers' rights, which can prevent, as well as address, legal problems in the workplace.

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Click to view legal information fact sheets related to the Community Legal Services Program.

Click to view sample letters and self-help tools.


The Bay Area Workers' Rights Clinic
The foundation of the Community Legal Services Program is the the Bay Area Workers' Rights Clinic. Because low-income workers have few places to turn for accurate information about their employment rights, the Legal Aid Society - Employment Law Center established Clinics throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to provide free and confidential information to these workers about their legal rights, as well as the steps they can take to protect and assert those rights. For over a decade, the Clinic has counseled clients on a wide variety of employment-related problems, ranging from denial of wages, discrimination, work and safety issues, unemployment benefits, harassment and wrongful termination. The Clinic generally does not accept cases or represent clients.

The Clinics are staffed by trained law student and paralegal counselors who are supervised by employment law specialists from the LAS-ELC's attorney staff and the local private bar. Through its volunteer interpreter corps, the Clinic also provides services in Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese, and often is able to arrange accommodations in other languages as well. Each year, the Workers' Rights Clinic assists more than 2,500 individuals with their work-related problems. The Clinics generally are open every weekday night and operate in four locations throughout the Bay Area. Our Clinics also offer counseling by telephone for workers who are unable to reach our Clinics in-person.

Please click here to see our eligibility income guidelines and clinic locations and schedule.

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Client Complaint Procedure

The Legal Aid Society - Employment Law Center (LAS-ELC) works with many clients through its Community Legal Services Program ("CLSP"). The CLSP welcomes client comments and takes complaints seriously. If you feel that you have been treated unfairly as a client, you are entitled to protest the policies or actions that you believe have affected you unjustly through an oral or written complaint.

You can make an oral complaint by calling the CLSP at (415) 864-8848 and contacting the Director of Community Legal Services. You may also send a written complaint to the CLSP at:

Director of Community Legal Services
Community Legal Services Program
Legal Aid Society - Employment Law Center
600 Harrison Street
Suite 120
San Francisco, CA 94107

COMPLAINANT'S RIGHTS

If you file a complaint, you have the following rights:

• To discuss the complaint with those who will be making the decision regarding the complaint, whether it is the CLSP program director or the Vice President - Program.
• To not be denied service or otherwise retaliated against you because you filed the complaint.
• To have your identity kept confidential to the extent possible while allowing for an investigation.
• To take other avenues or redress provided by law even though you have used this complaint procedure.
• To be provided with copies of CLSP information that you request related to the complaint that is not confidential and/or legally protected from disclosure. You may be required to pay a reproduction charge for this service.
• To choose to have an advocate present for any meetings with the CLSP. This other person, who might be a friend, other client, family member, or formal advocate, must be provided at your own expense. Staff members of the LAS-ELC may not act as your advocate in any way.

HOW TO FILE A COMPLAINT

The procedure for filing a complaint is as follows:

1. If you have a complaint regarding a CLSP attorney or staff member, you may contact the Community Legal Services Program Director, or his/her designee, to register your complaint either orally or by sending the complaint in writing. Complaint subjects may include, but are not limited to, communication issues, such as a staff member's failure to return your calls.
2. The program director, or his/her designee, will facilitate a mutually acceptable resolution if possible. Resolution efforts may include acting as a liaison between you and the person who is the subject of the complaint. The program director, or his/her designee, shall act as a neutral party when conducting these discussions.
3. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction at this level within 30 days, or if your complaint concerns the Community Legal Services Program Director, you may request a review of your complaint with the LAS-ELC's Vice President - Program or his/her designee.
4. Within 60 days of receiving the complaint, the LAS-ELC's Vice-President - Program, or his/her designee, will complete his/her investigation and notify you in writing that he/she will either:
1. Take appropriate action against the person complained about, or:
2. Close the matter with no action.

For your information, the State Bar of California (1-800-843-9053) will also take complaints concerning attorneys licensed in California.