Free legal clinic in Pensacola will offer advice on civil issues

Pathways for Change and about a half dozen local attorneys will be partnering to provide a free legal clinic to needy Pensacola citizens.

The Aug. 22 event, Justice on the Block, will invite people to walk into Pathways' family center, sit down with an attorney and get advice on an array of civil legal matters such as landlord/tenant disputes, family law and probate issues. The event is being hosted through a partnership among The Florida Bar Foundation, Legal Services of North Florida and Pathways.

Attorneys will answer questions and review documents at no charge, and Pathways staff will be available to help connect clients with other social services that can help them.

"The idea is to try to bring services to people in need, where they are," said Christy Emmanuel, project manager for the initiative that launched the clinic, The Escambia Project.

More: Florida attorneys provide free legal advice through online clinic

The Escambia Project is a collaborative project aimed at closing the "justice gap" that began with a multi-day brainstorming session in February when legal aid attorneys, community activists, social service providers, law professors, Florida Bar Foundation staff and others gathered to discuss ways of closing the "justice gap." Led by Margaret Hagan, director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford Law's Center for the Legal Profession, the group pondered how to ensure adequate legal aid for people who might not have the knowledge or means to seek it out themselves.

"So often, we find clients don't even know they have a legal issue," said Connie Bookman, CEO of Pathways for Change and a public member of The Florida Bar Foundation board.

For example, she noted some renters end up paying exorbitant electricity bills because they live in aged apartments with cracked walls, shoddy seals and poor insulation. They frequently don't realize they have the right to demand their landlord fix the issues, and that the landlord doesn't have the right to evict them or otherwise retaliate because of their concerns, Bookman said.

In a June study, the American Bar association found 86 percent of low-income households that reported civil legal problems in the past year received either no legal help or inadequate help. In addition, about 71 percent of low-income families experienced at least one civil legal problem, including problems with

domestic violence, veterans’ benefits, disability access, housing conditions and health care.

More: Overdue change for family law has arrived

Since 2004, Pathways for Change has worked to become a one-stop shop for families hoping to break the vicious cycles of poverty, addiction and incarceration. Along with counseling, skills training and educational programs, Pathways and its partners are hoping projects like Justice on the Block will help give clients options to seek and obtain civil justice.

"We're really trying to take issues from all sides," Bookman said. "Everything we can do to make sure these families are successful."

At the event, The Escambia Project will also be workshopping two future projects: One-Stop Life-Shop, which would bring together legal and other social services at the Pathways Family Center; and Smart Intake, a tech tool that would enable a volunteer — not necessarily a lawyer — to better spot when people have a legal issue and craft a game plan for how he or she could access legal services.

Want to go?

WHAT: Justice on the Block

WHEN: 3-7 p.m. Aug. 22

WHERE: Pathways Family Center, 2050 W. Blount St.