March’s Empowerment Coalition of Milwaukee (ECOM) brought together social service professionals looking to learn more about and explore resources relating to legal services.
Thank you to our presenters from Legal Action of Wisconsin, Legal Aid MKE, and the Milwaukee Justice Center for facilitating these important conversations about how community organizations can connect individuals to services that offer civil legal counsel.
Unlike criminal cases, people involved in civil cases do not have the right to an attorney, leaving many to navigate complex challenges on their own. Thankfully, there are organizations and resources in our community to help.
Attorney Malinda Eskra with Legal Action of Wisconsin highlighted their work providing free civil legal services, making meaningful change in thousands of lives by ensuring the civil legal system works for them. Helping low-income clients protect their families, health and safety, housing and livelihood, Legal Action of Wisconsin helps individuals secure and protect safe, affordable, and decent housing, focusing largely on eviction services—an issue effecting so many in our community.
Eskra also shared information about various special projects, including the Farmworker Project, Elder Rights and Senior Law projects, Overdose Prevention Project, and Legal Services for Homeless Veterans.
Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee Executive Director Colleen Foley spoke about Milwaukee’s housing and neighborhood stability conditions 10 years after the publication of Pulitzer Prize-winner Evicted, highlighting how a Right to Counsel for civil cases is being enacted on a national scale and gaining significant momentum. Milwaukee County passed Right to Counsel legislation in 2021 for residents facing eviction or foreclosure. Foley highlighted her organization’s Eviction Free MKE program—a right to counsel program that provides eviction defense and advocates for fair housing practices and resources to stabilize households.
Foley also spoke on Legal Action’s pre- and post-eviction wraparound services, as well as how knowing your rights and having an attorney by your side can help lift the psychological burden often inflicted on those navigating the legal system.
Meagan Winn, the Eviction Diversion Coordinator with the Milwaukee Justice Center, provided an overview of the free legal aid at the Milwaukee County Courthouse designed to help connect low-income self-represented people with knowledgeable volunteers to help ensure equal access to court and legal processes.
Mediate Milwaukee, a project of the Milwaukee Justice Center, is a free brief legal advice clinic stationed at community organizations and parks throughout each month. It offers advice related to landlord and tenant rights, evictions and eviction records, small claims, divorce, guardianship and child custody, debt collections and so much more.
Winn also spoke on behalf of the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinics, in which volunteer law students and attorneys provide free legal advice on civil matters.
Legal Action of Wisconsin, Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee Justice Center all have representatives at the Milwaukee County Courthouse multiple days a week, meeting people who can benefit from their services where they are. Milwaukee County residents can also connect with these entities by contacting the Milwaukee Rental Housing Resource Center in Community Advocates’ downtown offices at 728 N. James Lovell St., Milwaukee.
