Reflecting on Eight Years

We are happy to share our Executive Director, Lana Kleiman’s remarks at our 8th Anniversary Celebration:

It's fantastic to see both familiar and new faces here tonight. And can you believe it's not only CLA's 8th Anniversary but also my 5th anniversary as Executive Director? I made it! I still remember my first time up here, introduced by Adair, feeling a mix of nerves and excitement. Today, standing up here, I just feel pride. I couldn't be prouder of leading such an amazing team at CLA and all we’ve accomplished.

CLA was started to fill a gap in our justice system. To serve working-class folks who often are overlooked and underserved. These are the everyday people in our communities who live paycheck to paycheck, making sacrifices to make ends meet. You probably know some of these people. They are your child’s daycare teacher, your barista at your favorite coffee shop, or the receptionist at the doctor’s office. These are the individuals who fall within CLA’s income bracket.

“Although fully employed with essential jobs that keep our communities running, these individuals don’t earn enough to cover the rising costs of living, which leaves them vulnerable to falling into poverty with one single setback. ”

When they face legal challenges, they deserve quality and affordable legal services. That's where CLA steps in. By providing these services, we’re not just helping individuals with a legal matter - we are creating meaningful change in our community that has ripple effects.

We play a crucial role in preserving financial stability and averting poverty for our clients. Many find themselves embroiled in the legal system, not by choice, but by necessity. Yet, the solution comes with a hefty price tag. Our sliding scale fees, ranging between 50-100 per hour, which is 15 to 30% of market rates, ensure access to legal services without a financial burden. 

By safeguarding our clients' financial assets, we prevent devastating losses. Take Kuhnelm's case, for instance. He was forced into litigation and faced losing his home and disrupting his family's life. Who knows if he would have been able to afford another home in this housing market, especially in this area? But with our assistance, he retained his status as a homeowner – that is a really big deal. Not only did we preserve his financial well-being but that of his children and grandchildren, helping his family build generational wealth.

We're instrumental in promoting fairness and equity within the legal system by ensuring accountability. Our efforts level the playing field, preventing exploitation. For instance, we've assisted subcontractors whose earnings were unlawfully withheld by contractors aiming to take advantage of immigrants. Additionally, we're helping an elderly woman facing foreclosure because her name wasn't on the mortgage of the home she shared with her husband for twenty years before he passed. The bank would not let her make a payment. This is a situation where legal representation is indispensable. I don’t know about you, but I would need to hire a lawyer to navigate the complexities of foreclosure and I have a law degree.  

In family law, our impact extends far beyond custody agreements or divorces. We empower clients to make informed decisions about their future and that of their families. This not only reduces the likelihood of returning to court but also fosters safer and more stable homes, mitigating future social, health, and economic challenges. Ultimately, this reduces the burden on social services and makes our communities stronger and better.

While we have been building and growing thanks to your support our work is far from over.

“449,609 people in the Lowcountry qualify for our services. Demand for our services keeps growing, which is why we need your help. ”

To reach our goal, we need to raise $50,000 because we need to hire another lawyer to better serve our community, and we want to continue to grow and expand into new areas of law.

So, for the attorneys in the room, I challenge each of you to donate one billable hour. And for those of you lucky enough not to know what a billable hour is, the average billable hour in South Carolina is $250. So if everyone here donated one billable hour, we can reach our goal. So consider one billable hour in honor of all the hard-working individuals in our lives who live paycheck to paycheck so that in their hour of need, we are there to help them. Join me and the CLA team in creating a fairer and more equitable justice system that works for everyone!

I want to take a moment to acknowledge those who have been with us from the start, the same folks who continue to support and celebrate CLA year after year. People like Anne Kearse. We are so grateful to have Motley Rice as our presenting sponsor again this year. And people like David Pearlman and Steinberg Law Firm, Kenny Harrell and Joye Law Firm, and Nora Rogers and Nelson Mullins. Your Investment in CLA has fueled our growth and sustainability. Thank you to our specialty and bronze sponsors for making tonight possible and the Host Committee, who spent countless hours volunteering their time to make sure tonight was a great success. I want to thank my dedicated Board who always has my back and is constantly advancing the mission of CLA. And finally, thank you Rachael Hochberg, our new director of development. Tonight would truly not be possible without her. 

Finally, I need to thank the incredibly talented and dedicated team at CLA, who work tirelessly on behalf of our clients to make sure that families in the Lowcountry receive positive outcomes. CLA staff please stand up and let’s give them a huge round of applause.

Thank you all for your support and let's make tonight a huge success! 

About Charleston Legal Access

Charleston Legal Access is SC's first and only sliding-scale, nonprofit law firm. We provide affordable legal services at a price that those of moderate means can afford. Hourly rates are determined on an individual basis by a client's income and family size. Our initial screening and phone consultations with an attorney are completely free. In-person, 1-2 hour case consultations and limited assistance sessions are available for a flat fee of $50-$100. For more information please visit www.charlestonlegalaccess.org.

With client fees only making up 15% of our operational budget and a rise in demand for services, we are seeking like-minded partners to support our cause. Help us expand access to justice and legal representation by making a tax-deductible donation below.

Welcome to our new Board President, Julie Moore!

As February arrives, we enter a season celebrating the power of love. Love, both given and received, is paramount. At Charleston Legal Access (CLA), we believe in a love that goes beyond romance, inspiring actions for positive societal change. This love, akin to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision, intertwines with justice, correcting injustices. 

“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”  -MLK

In our choices—big or small—we act with empathy and kindness, sacrificing for the greater good. CLA stands for justice, fueled by unwavering commitment and supported by individuals like you. Your love has propelled our work over the past eight years, impacting countless lives, like Dan's, Heather's, and Robert's. 

Because YOU acted with deliberate and impactful love, people you will probably never meet had access to exceptional legal representation. I imagine Dan, Heather, and Robert each moving through the world—not relieved of all of their problems—but feeling life’s burden differently because they know they can turn to CLA for help. And that is because of your love.   

Your support of CLA ensures access to legal representation for those in need, fostering a community where everyone's rights are safeguarded.

As my six-year-old son was crafting Valentine’s Day hearts over the weekend, I asked him what love means.  Without looking up from his glitter and glue, he explained: “Love is kind of that feeling you get when you are a part of something good for someone else. You know?”  

In the words of a kindergartener, by choosing to support Charleston Legal Access, “you are a part of something good for someone else.”  And that is justice at its best.    

Julie is a trial lawyer and shareholder with Duffy & Young where she practices in the areas of personal injury, wrongful death, and business litigation. She is an active member of the South Carolina Bar and the Charleston County Bar where she has focused her leadership work on connecting lawyers with public service opportunities. Additionally, Julie is a former member of the board of directors of Special Olympics South Carolina. Previously, Julie served as a law clerk for the Honorable John Cannon Few who was then the Chief Judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals. In 2017, Julie was named the Young Lawyer of the Year by the South Carolina Bar Association.

About Charleston Legal Access

Charleston Legal Access is SC's first and only sliding-scale, nonprofit law firm. We provide affordable legal services at a price that those of moderate means can afford. Hourly rates are determined on an individual basis by a client's income and family size. Our initial screening and phone consultations with an attorney are completely free. In-person, 1-2 hour case consultations and limited assistance sessions are available for a flat fee of $50-$100. For more information please visit www.charlestonlegalaccess.org.

With client fees only making up 15% of our operational budget and a rise in demand for services, we are seeking like-minded partners to support our cause. Help us expand access to justice and legal representation by making a tax-deductible donation below.

How Sue Chang Empowers Others Through Justice

Sue Chang, an attorney and CLA board member shares why CLA and empowerment through justice is important to her and for our community.

My passion in law school was pro bono programs. The idea of access to justice has always been at the forefront of what I do. I first worked helping consumers who had mortgage fraud issues while I was a clerk at the Department of Consumer Affairs. After that, I worked in the Office on Violence Against Women grant for South Carolina Legal Services.

I ended up transitioning to working with the Language Access grant as well as the Migrant grant. I am fluent in Spanish, which is a great asset to have.

The Department of Labor allows people to come to America on H2 visas, which specifically allows them to help with farm work here, like the peach crops. As part of the Migrant grant, we as legal aid attorneys, would go on the farms and make sure there aren’t legal violations. The violations are really low standard. We made sure they had things like water, basic accommodations.

When we think about empowering communities, we think about people deserving legal action. That is one of the big cornerstones.

I was also working part time with the Language Access grant. We worked a lot with court administration here in South Carolina to ensure that there is a better standard, though there are still some issues, for court interpreters. It also helped other people who needed language assistance somehow. A small accommodation may be needed to give everyone the same access to justice. It is getting better in South Carolina, and I think it is because of work from Charleston Legal Access and South Carolina Legal Services, and other nonprofits.

“The nonprofits are creating places that can help people and providing the services our communities need.”

A lot of the court interpreters are not able to be available because of the way the court administration pays them. It is a minimum of two hours and if the hearing doesn’t go on, they don’t get paid. They get very little to no preparation and then they don’t even get paid if they sit around and wait or if it settles quickly, and it’s not like they would make a lot of money anyway. It is incredibly hard to be certified and be on the list because the third metric of language access is very hard, simultaneous interpretation. I personally am fluent in Spanish and English, and your brain is constantly scrambling to interpret. There are a limited amount of people who can provide this service and they just didn’t have enough to meet the demand, so some interpreters have been cleared by the clerk, but aren’t necessarily certified people. It is distracting to me as someone who understands Spanish. I know that what I am saying isn’t being interpreted correctly, but I can’t be an interpreter since I am not certified and cleared by the clerk. Small words can make big differences.

I have access to the best interpreters that my clients can possibly have for court, as a member of a private law firm. I could be waiting around for an interpreter, but I can call a fantastic certified person and ensure that they are there because my clients can pay for an interpreter. At my time with Legal Aid and DSS, we were at the mercy of the system. These interpreters want to help, but they can’t do so at their own risk of constantly losing money.

What I really enjoy about CLA, is that they have the capacity to help people in two languages, both Spanish and English. 

The price point for all these attorneys makes it very difficult for somebody who is a hard working person, to be able to take the services of most of the attorneys. I like that CLA is a full service law firm. I was first impressed with CLA when I had a case and CLA issued for discovery. Formal discovery takes time and effort on both sides and you don’t usually get that from legal services providers. Purely grant funded attorneys sometimes can’t take that extra step. CLA did it for a case where all the parties were Spanish speaking and so to provide that level of excellence meant that they were incredibly diligent.

“The CLA attorneys provided the exact same level of service as you would get from any top tier private law firm here in Charleston. To have that, it looked and felt like true access to justice.”

Ever since that case, I couldn’t stop sending people to CLA. I would tell them that you have to choose them because they will go all the way for you. CLA does everything correctly. I know that sounds like a weird standard, but it is a high standard. I know that financial declarations are being looked at, discovery is happening, motions happen. This is not a lower standard of access to justice just because it is affordable.

People who are doing ok, who work, but just make it above that threshold, would have to slide into poverty to afford legal services. I do family law, but right now we have a housing grant. There are a lot of tensions here between landlords and tenants, about what is fair and right. The fact that CLA can provide quality legal services to people and keep them from sliding, it is amazing.

Charleston Legal Access is the bridge that gives middle class, everyday people that same access to justice.

If there are no consequences to mistreating someone who you feel is powerless, then there isn't going to be a macro change in how you see these people as empowered, important, and deserving of respect. As a person who doesn’t always receive that, but believes that, that is empowerment. It shows others that you have got to respect me because I have tools, I have counsel, I understand and know my rights and somebody is here protecting me. That is the big level change that we need. That is what I wish for CLA, that CLA can share with our community at large to know that these hardworking, underserved people are empowered as a group- they have protection and knowledge, and if they don’t, then they can get it. I think that that would make its own change in policy. I have seen that already in Housing Court, since the housing grants have begun. And they have been carried out by extremely qualified, intelligent, and experienced attorneys. That’s huge. 

For example, I recently had an unusual situation where I became the guardian ad litem for an elderly person who’d been duped into thinking that a famous musician needed her help. She was lonely and vulnerable and ended up giving them money. The actual musician even wrote online that this was a scam, but the lady still believed that she had really been communicating with the musician. I don’t usually do housing, I am a family court attorney, but this woman had given all of her money to the scammer and was now losing her home.

I was in an interesting position because I am an experienced attorney, but I haven’t done anything with housing in years. I didn’t know any of the updates or how to navigate the situation. I was in the position of any person walking into Housing Court and having no idea what the laws and their rights were. The CLA attorneys who were there helping others, still took the time to share with me. They explained my role and provided guidance. They were able to articulate this entire process to me so that I could make the decisions for this woman with the knowledge that they freely, kindly, and intelligently provided.

This elderly woman had nobody, and so many people are vulnerable in some way either because of resources or circumstances, but then you have these CLA attorneys who are so knowledgeable and helpful, and it worked. In the end, we were able to find her alternative housing and get her settled. 

As an attorney, I needed an attorney to explain to me housing law so that I could make an informed decision for a client and then get the resources she needed to be rehomed. Y’all came through.

About Charleston Legal Access

Charleston Legal Access is SC's first and only sliding-scale, nonprofit law firm. We provide affordable legal services at a price that those of moderate means can afford. Hourly rates are determined on an individual basis by a client's income and family size. Our initial screening and phone consultations with an attorney are completely free. In-person, 1-2 hour case consultations and limited assistance sessions are available for a flat fee of $50-$100. For more information please visit www.charlestonlegalaccess.org.

With client fees only making up 15% of our operational budget and a rise in demand for services, we are seeking like-minded partners to support our cause. Help us expand access to justice and legal representation by making a tax-deductible donation below.

Dan's Legal Journey: “Not only did I have representation, I had effective representation at a rate I could afford.”

Dan had hoped he and his wife would have an amicable divorce without lawyers involved, so when he was unexpectedly served court papers, he was jarred. He wasn’t sure that he could fight back on his own, but as a nonprofit professional, he couldn’t afford a private attorney. Luckily he knew about Charleston Legal Access and was able to connect with them. Hear Dan’s full legal journey:

I work for an organization called My Sister’s House. We are the domestic violence agency for the tricounty area. Many of our clients need connected with Charleston Legal Access so we have a really good working relationship with them. So I had a professional relationship with CLA before I needed them personally.

My wife and I separated in April of 2022. My hope had always been that we would come to an agreement and go our separate ways. Unfortunately, I got served with papers that said otherwise. The demands in those court papers blew my mind. It made a lot of assertions that were provably incorrect. It wanted me to pay her lawyer fees and she had gone to a really expensive law firm, wanted me to pay for that and for me to pay for all of our debt. It was just terrible. I was reading through it and had this overwhelming feeling of, what am I going to do?

I can’t fight this one on my own.

I went ahead and agreed to use CLA. Felt really comfortable with that decision, really feeling like they understood my situation. It wasn’t a cookie cutter thing, it was one-on-one. I gave her just a trove of documents and financials from years because a lot of the things that were being said was that I wasn’t pulling my weight of the financial load. She (Lisa) wrote up a rough draft of what our response was going to be to that Court filing and I had this moment of, this surprise moment, when I read that draft for the very first time.

“I became so emotional, and it surprised me. I didn’t expect that at all. It took me a minute to realize why. It was because this was the very first time that anyone had ever advocated for me.”

For years, I was the bad guy, the problem. Now here was someone saying, hold on a second, you’re not always at fault here. Let’s advocate for you. Just using facts and the reality of the situation to advocate on my behalf, it was so empowering. Here is not only somebody who gets me and wants to work with me, here is someone who will actually fight for me. I didn’t realize the depths of which I had not experienced that.

Within a day of my now ex’s attorneys receiving that response, they dropped the demand for me to pay for her lawyers, they agreed to our request to quickly move into remediation instead of waiting four months, and there were two or three other things that aren’t coming to mind right now.

“What Lisa was able to do was to advocate for me, to not only help for me to feel empowered in this fight, but to help work towards actual justice. ”

We went through the mediation process, which was a totally hellacious day. I could not have done it without Lisa. She was there with me every step of the way. She explained the process in such detail that I actually felt like I understood what was happening. She advocated for me in such a way that I can not explain to you how amazing that felt. At the end of it, we got exactly what we wanted, to the exact percentage we thought the breakdown needed to be. I didn’t have to pay her attorney fees, which were exorbitant because she had gone to a big name law firm. It was exactly what I had hoped.

I work in the nonprofit world, it’s not like I can afford a big attorney. Her demand that I pay for her attorneys was completely out of the question, I knew that I would have to get representation to fight back. My hope was that we would just come to an agreement and go our separate ways. Suddenly I was dragged into the court system and the forces read against me just seemed overwhelming. What am I going to do? Who am I going to get on my side? So the feeling of empowerment that comes when somebody says, I’ll be your advocate was just tremendous.

“It turned out that not only did I have representation, I had effective representation at a rate I could afford. I wasn’t buried in more debt.”

The Lisa that I met that day was a caring, passionate advocate. She said, I want to understand the situation and I want to go to war for you. I didn’t feel like you are client number 1,312. It was like, you’re Dan and you are facing this unique situation, this is going to be a unique journey and I want to walk it with you. I really felt like she knew me, not as the Dan she knew professionally, but as a guy who really needed help going through something really difficult in his personal life. She embraced that role and hit the gas, and I was along for the ride. It was an amazing journey.

I want more people to experience what I experienced here. I think of the sheer number of people in our area that need domestic violence services. Of course there is a capacity level there for any agency. But I think of the amazing experience I had at CLA and I want everyone to have that experience. I gotta tell you, I don’t know where I would be today if it wasn’t for them. I want more people to know what that feels like to have an advocate that knows them, cares for them, and wants to fight for them.

About Charleston Legal Access

Charleston Legal Access is SC's first and only sliding-scale, nonprofit law firm. We provide affordable legal services at a price that those of moderate means can afford. Hourly rates are determined on an individual basis by a client's income and family size. Our initial screening and phone consultations with an attorney are completely free. In-person, 1-2 hour case consultations and limited assistance sessions are available for a flat fee of $50-$100. For more information please visit www.charlestonlegalaccess.org.

With client fees only making up 15% of our operational budget and a rise in demand for services, we are seeking like-minded partners to support our cause. Help us expand access to justice and legal representation by making a tax-deductible donation below.

Heather's Legal Journey Through a Housing Nightmare

Heather and Ben moved from another state and were thrilled to purchase what seemed to be their dream home in a wonderful and safe neighborhood. Enthusiastic to share it with family and friends, they envisioned creating lasting memories in the home. However, their excitement was short-lived. Just three weeks after their arrival, the recently installed seven-month-old roof began leaking throughout the entire house. This marked the beginning of a prolonged and arduous four-year legal nightmare…

We moved here from out of state. My husband was our only income, he had finished an apprenticeship. Thankfully, I had invested in my ast house at a time when the market was lower so it gave us enough that we were able to buy kind of a dream home. It wasn’t huge or anything, but it was in a great neighborhood, so I felt safe. We just fell in love with it the first time we saw it. We were so excited to show off this home.

Three weeks after we moved in, our roof, that was only seven months old, started leaking all over the place. We had been out grocery shopping, and typical South Carolina, it had been raining for two days. We came home and pieces of the ceiling were falling down. Above that was our FROG with dormers, so we went up and found everything wet and moldy. It had basically soaked through the storage and floor areas and soaked through the ceiling into our garage.

That was the beginning of it. We were supposed to have had a warranty on the roof. When we reached out to the roofer about it, they said they weren’t going to cover it because we weren’t the ones that purchased the roof. 

That started an almost four year nightmare.

The house over the next year began to decline. The walls bubbled up from moisture in the crawl space. I was sick constantly, rashes, sinus infections, bloody noses. Even my husband who is always healthy as a horse was sniffling and had a mild cough at night time.

One day he said, I think our floors are curling up around the edges and we went and looked throughout the different rooms. We actually found an area right under our bed where the wood had actually curled up and separated the whole length of the bed. The other thing that we noticed was that a lot of the wood was turning black. I thought it was dirt originally, but there was a spot in the bedroom that I had taken a picture of because I thought that maybe the floors needed sanded. Turns out it is called cupping, it is when moisture gets under the floor from the crawl space, and it had happened before there were tiny little nails from where they had nailed it back down. But because it was still wet when they nailed it back down, it caused mold to grow and that was the black coming through.

Also, while they were in the crawl space, we were informed that there was extensive mold. It was years worth of mold, an inch to two inches thick. The worst of it being on the side of the house where the bedroom was, which explains why I was so sick. I went from having three mold allergies to four. I’m doing shots, they said it is so severe that I will probably never recover from it. We had to have construction done on the house just now to finish the repairs and while it was much more minor construction then having to have your flooring ripped up or work in the crawl space, I have been struggling with rashes and I have to take two allergy pills a day, put cream on, just to control the rash. My nose is bleeding again, so we have to go through another round of mold remediation.

We have spent about $165,000 in repairs. 

“In the process, we did find out that the sellers and their realtor did know about these issues because there had been sellers before who had an inspection and their inspector found everything. ”

He told them that they needed to check this out further, that this was very concerning. He even took pictures of what caused it, but the sellers had ripped out what caused it- it was overgrown vegetation on the side of the house. They ripped it out before they relisted it, but they didn’t take anything that was in that inspection even though they had a full copy, they didn’t disclose any of it. We did have an inspector, but he told us it was a fantastic house, nothing’s wrong. Just missing a valve on the hot water tank, so that’s all we did.

And of course we are in the middle of COVID during all of this, we moved in right before COVID. So trying to get contractors out was really fun. Even just trying to get supplies to do repairs. It was challenging. The house was just part of it though, there’s also the mental aspect of it.  

It is stressful to go through a lawsuit as a one-income household, and I am having other health issues because I am disabled. I had to have a couple major surgeries during this time, one of them I almost died from. It was very hard on us mentally. Then we’d go to things like mediation and instead of focusing on the facts of the case, they try to tear you apart as a person. That when you are already struggling, would overwhelm my husband and I. We were already exhausted, dealing with so many house problems, contractors, and repairs, and you are trying to figure out how to pay for them.

We had to miss out on so much life at the same time, they kind of things that could help you get through the bad stuff. Not just because of COVID, we couldn’t visit them, but then they couldn’t come visit us. Even after COVID, when the mold remediation was done, we were afraid to invite our elderly parents or anybody or our niece who is seven-years-old. At the time this started my niece was three and they came to visit, and she had taken a bath in the guest bathroom tub. When they later ripped up the tub and we saw how bad it was, you could step on it and feel like you were going to fall in. We decided to rip the tub out because I was very concerned and thank goodness we did because the floor support beams were completely rotted through. And all I could think was, my niece took a bath in this three weeks ago. What if she had fallen through? Our contractor said that he was amazed she hadn’t.

It was not safe to have people in there. We were living in it though.

“It’s been a very hard four years, but we also know that we would not have been able to fight for this if we had not found Charleston Legal Access. ”

The repairs totaled $165,000, plus legal fees, and we are a one-income family. There is no way we could have done that if we hadn’t found them. The truth is that I don’t think you can come out of this feeling like you are whole, but we felt we got justice because we got to defend ourselves and we got to confront them on what they did. We didn’t have our day in court, but we got to do our depositions and we had an attorney that was strong enough that when they were being nasty with us, she would step right in. We felt like we had the support that we needed. When the depositions were against them and they would try to skip around things, she was direct and made them answer. While we didn't get the day in court and we didn’t get anywhere near what we spent on the repairs, we got enough to finish the repair and that is what we needed. We got to see them admit to things that they had been lying about for years. I think that is what lets us sleep at night.

I really struggled mentally for a good year of it. The last two years, it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t hard, but I survived it because I knew that I had someone backing me up through it. I trusted my attorney. We picked CLA because when I spoke to Sarah at CLA, we felt like she had the same morals as we did. We could also tell she cared, the passion and the care was so obvious with her.

The other attorneys just seemed numb to it, either they’d been doing it too long or they just don’t have the same personality. We wanted our lawyer to be able to fight and stand up for us, but we aren’t looking to run up attorney fees, or make this a bigger case than it has to be. We just wanted what was right for us so that we could move on with our lives. The one thing that was the big deciding factor was that we could tell she really cared, she just had that concern, that compassion that was so genuine.  That’s really why we picked her over the other attorney.  

A big portion of our consideration was cost, for sure.

“You never want to say, I can’t do this because I can’t afford it. We would have just not eaten if we had to, and that really would have been our situation. ”

We would not have been able to eat. We would have lived off ramen noodles and PBJs for four years, but we didn't feel like we needed to because we found an attorney who was competent and caring.

We gave our financial documents, and we were borderline on whether they would take us. Once you added in my disability, it technically put us slightly over. But I explained that I have medical bills, and like a hundred prescriptions, I mean it seems like we have a lot, but we really don’t. Sarah went to the board and showed them our stuff and said that while it looks like they make more and are over, but they are a one-income household family and one of them has a lot of medical expenses, so they made an exception to take us because she had cared so much. I’ll never forget when she called and told me, I just started bawling. Because this was the first time we had health insurance and I would be able to get the full care that I needed, but now we had all these expenses coming up. I had to do without a lot of stuff, and was in a lot of pain and suffering for several years. I thought, I’ll have to do that again. I’ll do it again, because we have to defend ourselves. If we didn’t, how could we live with that. We would have to accept that these people did awful things to us and just get away with it , so when she called and said they were going to take us, I just cried. 

But I was able to still get the healthcare I needed, still pay my copays, and see my doctors as often as I needed because we weren’t a whole lot more money for the attorney. I was still able to scrape and put a little money away so that we could pay for the next big expense, related to either the house or the lawsuit. But I didn’t have to go without any medical care, which was huge. 

We knew it was such a complicated case, that we thought we needed a really good firm to represent us. An attorney we talked to sold us on CLA. He said he'd been against them in court. They are good at what they do, they care and they are compassionate and I am telling you that they will not serve you wrong. I was a little hesitant, but I called and I don’t regret that. Sarah was always very aware of our financial situation and she would say, I could do this, but I want to wait til this so I am not just wasting your money. I always appreciated that because we were always scraping and saving because we always knew there was going to be another big repair or attorney expense when the case finally moved forward, so that mattered to us. She wasn’t just thinking about our case, but she was thinking about us as people.

About Charleston Legal Access

Charleston Legal Access is SC's first and only sliding-scale, nonprofit law firm. We provide affordable legal services at a price that those of moderate means can afford. Hourly rates are determined on an individual basis by a client's income and family size. Our initial screening and phone consultations with an attorney are completely free. In-person, 1-2 hour case consultations and limited assistance sessions are available for a flat fee of $50-$100. For more information please visit www.charlestonlegalaccess.org.

With client fees only making up 15% of our operational budget and a rise in demand for services, we are seeking like-minded partners to support our cause. Help us expand access to justice and legal representation by making a tax-deductible donation below.