In the News
CSAJ Announces Exciting New Work
January 29, 2015
The Center for Survivor Agency and Justice is thrilled to announce a new wave of technical assistance and training, with a particular focus on increasing access to economic justice for survivors in the civil legal justice system. Thanks to a new grant from the Office on Violence Against Women, Department of Justice, CSAJ will provide training and technical assistance to Legal Assistance for Victims and Rural Grantees to meet the consumer and economic civil legal needs of survivors. Partners on the grant include: the National Consumer Law Center, Home Free, the Center for Court Innovation, Wider Opportunities for Women, along with a cadre of Expert Advisors.
The Consumer Rights for Domestic and Sexual Violence Initiative will expand upon its previous work by building consumer lawyers’ and advocates’ capacity to: provide consumer and economic civil legal advocacy and engage in systemic advocacy to remove barriers to economic security for survivors. The Initiative will engage in this work in several new and exciting ways:
Guidebook and Advocacy Briefs: With expert consultants and partners, CSAJ will create a comprehensive guidebook and companion advocacy briefs for civil attorneys and advocates who are thirsty for concrete resources to support them in meeting the consumer and civil legal economic needs of survivors. The Guidebook and Briefs will expand upon previous tools developed by CSAJ and partners.
Consumer Practice Webinars: CSAJ will present a series of webinars focusing on substantive consumer and economic civil legal advocacy, while bridging the gaps between domestic violence and consumer advocates and cultivating a national network amongst attorneys with a common goal.
Consumer Rights Demonstration Sites will help identify and test promising models of advocacy, partnership, and systems change, building upon the groundwork already laid and reported in Building Partnerships for Economic Justice: A Report on CSAJ’s Innovative Pilot Projects. The initiative will meet the overwhelming need for intensive, context-specific consultation on increasing access to consumer and economic security in the civil justice system, by supporting four sites of innovation: The Texas Council on Family Violence, Indiana Legal Services, Women’s Resource Center of Scranton, PA, and Denver Law School’s Civil Litigation Clinic.