The Harriett Buhai Center developed its Community College Program to fill the lack of legal assistance for low-income community college students in LA County who are experiencing domestic violence and other family problems. The area schools include East Los Angeles, El Camino, Los Angeles Trade Tech, LA City, Southwest, Mount San Antonio and Citrus College.
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As a Senior Staff Attorney, Erin Dabbs was concerned that low-income parents lacking legal counsel were often forced to miss work, pay for expensive child care and transportation in order to get documents and files at court. Taking the initiative, Erin helped secure a legislative amendment that allows unmarried litigants in paternity cases to designate
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The Center’s five-year-old Mothers Behind Bars program, praised by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, continues to expand its efforts to deal with the devastating–and growing–problem of incarcerated women with children. Nationwide, there are nearly one million women in the correctional system–a 400% increase since drug laws mandated sentencing, according to the National Women’s
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The Center’s Equal Justice Works Fellow, Katherine Ojeda Stewart, has joined the Center to help formerly incarcerated mothers reestablish relationships with their children in safe and meaningful ways. The Equal Justice Works Fellowship is designed to match public interest minded new lawyers with legal aid programs like the Harriett Buhai Center. The project aims to
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“The practical experience I gained while working at the Buhai Center is something that I know I could not have learned from any class or through any other internship. The challenges of the first year law curriculum at times left me overwhelmed and I became jaded, losing sight of the reasons I chose to study
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