Neighborhood Legal Services Of Los Angeles County

Health and Medical Legal Community Partnership (MLCP):NLSLA is at the forefront of health advocacy in California. NLSLA advocates utilize direct representation, policy advocacy, and impact litigation to resolve widespread health access and health equity issues and run the nation's largest network of Medical Legal Community Partnerships (MLCP), through which lawyers collaborate with healthcare providers in clinics and hospitals to address the social determinants of health. NLSLA piloted the project for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. It proved so successful that today NLSLA's MLCP model is a permanent feature of the Los Angeles County health delivery system. NLSLA is also the largest member of the Health Consumer Alliance--a network of nine legal assistance programs operated by community-based legal services organizations across the State of California. As part of the alliance, NLSLA runs the Health Consumer Center--the largest project in the Alliance--which provides free legal information and representation to individuals struggling to access health insurance coverage or care and resolve problems with their health plans. Our advocates also work with clients to eliminate medical debt. This work includes challenging improper insurance denials, requesting financial assistance, overturning insurance denials, filing complaints with California's Department of Managed Health Care, working directly with providers and Medi-Cal, and State Fair Hearings. By utilizing these different strategies, in 2024, HCC's advocates successfully relieved more than $1,000,000 of client medical debt and recovered over $80,000 in bad medical debt. In 2024, NLSLA closed 1,893 cases related to health issues.

Self Help Centers:NLSLA believes justice depends on equal access to the courts, especially for self-represented litigants. NLSLA oversees the nation's largest network of Self-Help Legal Access Centers (Centers), located in six courthouses throughout Los Angeles County. In 2024, more than 61,350 people received help at the Centers, with 94.3% of the issues involving family law, domestic violence or housing.This included 25,263 family law matters, 17,481 housing matters, and 15,113 domestic violence matters. In addition to individual assistance, the Centers offer education and workshops on a wide range of issues and provide easy-to-use information and instructions about drafting legal documents and preparing for hearings. This included 483 self-help clinics, educational workshops and trainings and outreach events held.

General Legal Services:Includes public benefits, domestic violence, clean slate initiative, disaster relief and policy advocacy. General legal services funds are used to support NLSLA broadly--fully funding some programs and supplementing others. In 2024, NLSLA assisted on over 150,000 legal matters. This included 8,531 attorney and advocate assisted legal and case management cases; 18,964 hotline calls addressed; as well as 199,484 unique views of NLSLA's online education, outreach material, and other resources on NLSLA's website. In 2024, NLSLA closed 1,162 public benefits cases. NLSLA also assisted tens of thousands of people through impact litigation.