• California LSC-funded Programs
• California Policy and Advocacy Organizations
• National Legal and Policy Sites

California LSC-funded Programs

• LawHelpCalifornia.org – California legal services web portal for client-oriented resources and referral info, and much more.

• Bay Area Legal Aid
• California Indian Legal Services
• California Rural Legal Assistance
• Central California Legal Services
• Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance
• Inland Counties Legal Services
• Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
• Legal Aid Society of Orange County
  • I-CAN Earned Income Credit Project @ Legal Aid Society of Orange County – step-by-step instructions and print-online forms to help low-income clients claim their Earned Income Tax Credit.
• Legal Aid Society of San Diego
• Legal Services of Northern California
• Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County
• LSC List of California Programs, Funding and Service Areas

California Policy and Advocacy Organizations

• ACLU of Northern California
• ACLU of Southern California
• Bet Tzedek Legal Services
• California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform
• California Budget Project – ground zero in California for the best in budget info.
• California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA) – leading advocates in California on hunger issues.
• California Housing Law Project – valuable site for updates, summaries, and data on pending California low-income housing legislation, offers e-mail newsletters for latest info.
• California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative (CIWC)
• California Voter Foundation
• CALPIRG – the consumer-oriented “we’re on it”; folks, sorta Consumers Union with the gloves off.
• California Welfare Information Clearinghouse @ The Finance Project
• Employment Law Center @ Legal Aid Society – well regarded public interest center focusing on employment rights of low-income workers and welfare recipients, includes killer collection of fact sheets.
• Health Consumer Alliance – highly regarded California-based site for low-income patient and consumer health info.
• Legal Aid of San Mateo County
• Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara County
• Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness
  • People’s Guide to Welfare, Health & Other Services
• Northern California Council for the Community – aka Healthy California Progress Report Initiative, offers high quality statewide and county data.
• Protection & Advocacy, Inc. – prominent legal advocates for California’s disabled. There is also a Spanish-language version of the website.
• Public Interest Clearinghouse | Legal Aid Association of California – San Francisco-based joint resource centers for legal services and other IOLTA-funded programs in California.
• Western Center on Law and Poverty (WCLP)
  • Health Resources
  • Housing Resources
  • Welfare Resources
  • WCLP Publications – start here to locate by-topic manuals, fact sheets, flyers and more.

National Legal and Policy Sites

• American Bar Association (ABA)
  • ABA Division for Legal Services
  • Find Legal Help – innovative Consumer’s Guide to finding various types of legal help on the Web.
• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – offers extensive links on civil liberties issues, including access to ACLU briefs and synopses of U.S. Supreme Court cases.
• America’s Second Harvest – prominent national leader on hunger issues.
  • News Room – recent hunger-related press releases and news stories.
• Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law – good starting point for info on mental health, ADA and other disability issues.
• Benchmark Institute – preeminent training organization in California and nationally for the legal services and larger public-interest law community.
• BNA’s Web Watch Reading Room – fascinatingly useful site regularly updated with links to “government, industry, and academic resources on selected topics spanning the breadth of BNA coverage” – among others, government, housing and health issues.
• Center for Health Improvement
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)
  • 2009 Earned Income Tax Credit Outreach Kit – fact sheets on Earned Income Credit and Child Tax Credit refunds available to low- and moderate income workers; a full range of outreach strategy ideas that have been used successfully in local communities; posters, flyers, and envelope stuffers in English and Spanish; and the essential tax forms workers need to claim the credits.
• Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
• Child Care Law Center (CCLC)
• Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)
• Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) – prominent Berkeley-based national advocacy program with focus on disability rights.
• Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
  • UI Calculator
  • UI Issue Guide
• Families USA
• The Finance Project – latest incarnation of what used to be called the Welfare Information Clearinghouse, with somewhat improved content, organization and design offering links to low-income policy info and resources.
  • includes specific California Welfare Information Clearinghouse.
• Food Research and Action Center (FRAC)
• HealthCareCoach.com – strong consumer-oriented site (developed by the National Health Law Program) with national perspective on info about keeping health care costs down, coping with emergencies, dealing with denied health claims, and what people can do when they lose coverage.
• Idealist.org – links to 16,000 non-profit and volunteer organizations, a project of Action Without Borders.
• Institute for Research on Poverty @ Wisconsin
• Joint Center for Poverty Research @ Northwestern / Chicago
• Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured @ Kaiser Family Foundations – plethora of policy materials, including:
  • Medicaid Resource Book – detailed, policy-oriented analysis of the Medicaid program: who it covers, what it covers, how it is financed, and how it is administered.
• Legal Services Corporation (LSC)
  • LSC Act
  • LSC Regulations
  • LSC Program Letters
  • Map of LSC Programs
• Management Information Exchange (MIE) – clearinghouse for independent management training and resources for the legal services community.
• Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC)
• National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA)
• National Center for Children in Poverty @ Columbia
• National Child Care Information Center (NCCIC) @ HHS
• National Center for Law and Economic Justice – New York-based center on TANF and other income-support programs.
• National Center for Youth Law (NCYL)
• National Center on Poverty Law – research backbone of the national legal services community, ever expanding website with links and content re poverty law issues.
  • Federal Practice Manual for Legal Aid Attorneys (2006) – download PDF version, by chapter.
  • Federal Practice Manual for Legal Aid Attorneys (2006) – web-based version, with embedded links to referrenced cases, statutes and other authorities.
  • Poverty Law Manual for the New Lawyer – primer for the new (and not-so-new) legal services advocate, with solid overviews of major categories of poverty law practice.
• National Consumer Law Center (NCLC)
• National Employment Law Project (NELP)
• National Fair Housing Advocate
• National Health Law Program (NHeLP)
• National Housing Law Project (NHLP)
• National Immigration Law Center (NILC)
• National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA)
• National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)
• National Senior Citizens Law Center
• Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) – key resource for info re the relationship between race and poverty, and policies and practices addressing that relationship.
• Russell Sage Foundation
• State Policy Documentation Project – tracks policy choices on TANF and Medicaid in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, a joint project of Center for Law and Social Policy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
• Urban Institute
• Women’s Law Initiative – state-specific legal information and an e-mail hotline for help with domestic violence issues.