Law students on courthouse steps in White Plains, NY

The Legal Hand Call-In Center serving Westchester County

In partnership with the not-for-profit Legal Hand Inc., the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University operates the virtual Legal Hand Call-In Center serving Westchester County. The Center launched in January 2023 with an initial cohort of law student Volunteers as a one-year pilot program and has been serving a great need in the County.

Through the Legal Hand Call-In Center serving Westchester County, highly trained non-lawyer Volunteers and law students provide free legal information, resources, assistance, and referrals (not legal advice) to virtual Visitors who live, work, or go to school in Westchester County. Volunteers work to help Visitors resolve important issues impacting their life in areas such as housing, immigration, family, domestic violence, public benefits, employment, and many more (the Center does not assist with criminal matters). The Legal Hand Call-In Center is an all-virtual resource center for community members, with office space on the third floor of Aloysia Hall at the Law School. Legal Hand works to prevent and resolve problems before they become legal actions and to empower neighbors to help neighbors.

Law student and community Volunteers must complete a significant formal training process before participating. Law students handle shifts during the Center hours either as Volunteers or through a guided externship for credit, and members of the broader community must complete the Volunteer training as well and are asked to commit to serving a minimum of 3 hours per week for 6 months. The virtual Legal Hand Call-In Center serving Westchester is open to Visitor outreach several hours during the work week, as well as one evening to 7:00 p.m. and on most Saturday mornings.

The virtual help is language accessible with a language line available for callers who require translations, and the Center’s Manager, Diego Gomez, a 2022 Haub Law graduate, is fluent in Spanish and French as well as English. In the first two and a half months of Center operation, over 200 Visitors were assisted, and as many as 20% or more Visitors in some months identified Spanish as their native or preferred language.