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Older & Wiser Program Developed by Neighborhood Legal
Services Association
Neighborhood Legal
Services Association (NLSA) and southwestern Pennsylvania
legislators are co-sponsoring Older & Wiser, a public
service initiative providing free legal information seminars on
matters of special importance to elderly adults and their families.
NLSA developed the
project on behalf of the 14-county Southwestern Pennsylvania Legal
Services Consortium and will co-host the first seminars with
legislators from districts within its four-county service area. The
project is a cooperative effort between NLSA, who developed the
presentations, legislators who host the seminars, and the private
bar who deliver the information to the public during the seminars.
Plans are for the
project to expand to additional legislative districts within the
remaining 10 counties served by the southwest consortium. NLSA and
the Southwestern Pennsylvania State Legislative Delegation
officially launched Older & Wiser at a joint news
conference
in Harrisburg on Tuesday, Sept. 30, in the main Capitol Rotunda.
Older & Wiser Website |
| A Guide to Legal Issues
for
Pennsylvania Senior Citizens is Updated for 2007-2008 by the PA Bar
Association The popular, A Guide to
Legal Issues for Pennsylvania Senior Citizens, has been
updated for 2007.
Created by the PA Bar Association Senior Lawyers
Committee, the guide is designed to provide information about
legal issues faced by Pennsylvania's older citizens and their
caregivers.
It offers basic information, describes various
services and ways to access them and outlines areas that may
require specific legal advice or expertise. The updated version is
only available online.
Click
here to view the updated guide in Adobe PDF format. |
| Equal Justice Magazine
Online EJM is produced by the Washington D.C.
based Legal Services Corporation. It is the country’s only feature
magazine dedicated exclusively to exploring equal justice issues
and the work of public interest lawyers. EJM tells the untold
stories of courageous clients and intrepid attorneys who turn
shallow lawyer stereotypes on their head.
Click here
to view the current online edition of the magazine. |
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Welcome to the
Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network
Community Education Page
The links on the left to
PALawHELP.org are your gateway to a wealth of
general legal information from Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network and a variety of other
sources. This information, while no
substitute for the personalized advice of a legal professional, can
serve as a useful resource for individuals navigating their way through
the legal system.
PLAN
Terms of Use Statement
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This tax season,
Pennsylvanians will be able to electronically file their
state and federal income taxes and apply for the Earned
Income Tax Credit online and for FREE at
www.icanefile.org.
I-CAN! E-File is a FREE
internet-based resource that can help low to moderate
income taxpayers file their tax returns and claim the
Earned Income Tax Credit.
The Earned Income Tax
Credit (EITC) enables working families to receive up to
$4,824 from the IRS. Unfortunately, an estimated 25% of
those eligible do not receive this important credit –
robbing both the taxpayer and the community of valuable
revenue.
A rough estimate of the
lost refunds from not filing a return claiming the
credit is $300 million per year. In addition, it is
estimated that 80% of EITC recipients use paid tax
preparers at a cost of $650 million per year.
There is no income limit to use I-CAN!® E-file. Just
answer simple questions on each screen and print your
completed tax returns. I-CAN!® E-file can also e-file
(electronically file) your federal return to the IRS and
your state return with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The user-friendly I-CAN! E-File web site was created by
the Legal Aid Society of Orange County and is rolled out
throughout the country by partner non-profit
organizations. Pennsylvania I-CAN!™ E-File was developed
by Southwestern Pennsylvania Legal
Services, Inc.
The website can be used by anyone with access to an
Internet connection and a printer. For example, someone
could use I-CAN!™ E-File at work, at a computer terminal
in a public library or in the privacy of their own home.
By logging onto the
website, filers who have a bank account can obtain their
refund money in as little as ten days. By using this
option, I-CAN!™ E-File users avoid paying interest and
filing fees associated with the “instant refunds”
offered by companies providing refund anticipation
loans. These fees and interest can consume up to one
half of the user's tax credit.
Last year, Pennsylvania I-CAN!™ E-File returned $1.6
million in total returns and $562,000 in EITC money.
Visit the I-CAN! E-File
website for more information and to file your 2008
income tax returns.
Frequently Asked Questions about I-CAN! E-File
I-CAN!
E-File website
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Pennsylvania Legal
Aid Network Presents 2009 Excellence Awards
The 2009 Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network Excellence Awards were
presented at the annual awards dinner on Tuesday, March
31, 2009, at the Harrisburg Hilton & Towers.
The evening's keynote speaker was The Honorable Marjorie O. Rendell,
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. A social hour preceded the awards
dinner which began at 6:00 PM.
The Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network
Excellence Awards honor members and friends of the legal
aid community who exemplify excellence in their
commitment and accomplishments as advocates for
low-income people.
The 2009 Excellence
Award recipients include includes a variety of civil
legal aid professionals and friends of civil legal aid
across Pennsylvania who were recognized for their
efforts in support of the clients served by the programs
of the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network. Individuals
selected for recognition include:
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Karen Detamore, Esq.
Executive Director, Friends of Farmworkers, Inc.
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Joseph K. Goldberg, Esq.
Harrisburg, PA
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Brian Hudson
Executive Director, Pennsylvania Housing Finance
Agency
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Catherine T. Martin, Esq.
Managing Attorney, Neighborhood Legal Services
Association
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Kathy J. Parks
Paralegal, MidPenn Legal Services
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Elizabeth C. Price
Executive Director, Delaware County Bar
Association
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Catherine Rusk
Paralegal, North Penn Legal Services
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Richard Weishaupt, Esq.
Senior Attorney, Community Legal Services |
Also recognized with Excellence
Awards were the Honorable Darnell Jones,
Judge, U.S. District Court of Eastern District of PA
(and former President Judge of the Court of Common
Pleas, Philadelphia County), and the Honorable
Annette Rizzo, Judge, Court of Common Pleas,
Philadelphia County, for their work relating to the
groundbreaking Residential Mortgage Foreclosure
Diversion Pilot Program that was implemented in the
Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County in 2008.
The HomeWorks Project was also presented with an
Excellence Award
for a unique and innovative collaboration between
Regional Housing Legal Services and the Pennsylvania
Health Law Project to develop a supportive housing
project tailored to the needs of a group of disabled
individuals.
Individuals recognized in connection with the
project include David Gates, Esq., PA Health Law
Project and Kim Dolan, Esq., Regional Housing
Legal Services, as well as the residents of the project,
Kevin Alston, Michael Anderson and
William Keech. A video tribute to each of the award
winners was presented during the awards ceremony. Those
video tributes may be viewed at the link below. Pennsylvania Legal
Aid Network, Inc. salutes each of the 2009 award winners
for their efforts in promoting equal justice to all.
Photos from the Awards Dinner
View the Video
Tributes
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| News from |
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| NPLS Launches Computer-Assisted Custody Documents to Help
Low-Income People North Penn Legal Services
has created legal forms for low-income parents to use to start a
custody case or change a custody order through the use of
innovative software called "HotDocs," a product of LexisNexis.
Parents answer a series of questions over the
Internet, and their answers are used to produce legal documents
for their particular situation and county.
"The goal of producing computer-assisted
custody papers is to get people in the door at the courthouse,"
said Victoria Coyle, Esq., Executive Director of North Penn
Legal Services. "Parents producing their own custody papers will
save time for staff at legal services organizations in all
counties across the state," explained Coyle. Low-income people
can find the computer-assisted forms in the Children and
Families section at
www.PALawHELP.org.
“The design and availability of the statewide custody complaint
form by North Penn Legal Services will provide significant
assistance to self represented litigants, as well as the general
public, in Pennsylvania. Plans are to incorporate these new
forms into the new website being developed to afford additional
help, on a statewide basis, to self represented litigants in the
family law area,” said Judge Jack A. Panella, chair of the
committee established by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the
Pennsylvania Bar Association to develop legal education and
community outreach programs in Pennsylvania. |
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Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network Recognizes
Participants in 2008 Martin Luther King Jr.
Internship Program
The Pennsylvania Legal
Aid Network celebrated the 2008 Martin Luther King
Jr. Internship Program at a reception that was held
on August 6, 2008 at the Dauphin County Bar
Association in Harrisburg.Pedro A. Cortes, Secretary of the Commonwealth
was the keynote speaker at the Recognition Reception.
Secretary Cortés was nominated as Secretary of the Commonwealth by
Governor Rendell on April 2, 2003 and was unanimously confirmed by
the Senate on May 13, 2003, making him the first confirmed Latino
Cabinet member in Pennsylvania history.
Funding and
financial support for the MLK Internship program is provided by the
Pennsylvania Interest on Lawyers Trust Account Board and the
Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. PLAN appreciates the
ongoing support of these organizations for the MLK program.
The 2008 edition of
The Drum Major, a
collection of essays by the interns reflecting on their summer in
legal services, was distributed at the reception. The essays
included in The Drum Major may be viewed at the link
below.
Certificates of Recognition were presented to the
interns who participated in the internship program during 2008.
Interns receiving recognition included:
Mukta Agrawal
Pennsylvania Health Law Project
Sakeenah S. El-Amin
Community Legal Services
Karen Fernandez
Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project
Philadelphia Legal Assistance
Amanda K. Franzen
Neighborhood Legal Services Association
Benjamin Haire
Northwestern Legal Services
Ema L. Iruobe
Community Impact Legal Services
Cherie N. Long
Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Tedeisha Rowe
Regional Housing Legal Services
Sheldon A. Smith
North Penn Legal Services
Alejandro Ventura
Community Justice Project
Truniece L. White
MidPenn Legal Services
2008 Drum Major
Biography of Secretary Cortés
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