Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts
- To Volunteer, Contact:
- Organization Type: Nonprofit Legal Services Provider
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Location:
50 Federal St., 4th FloorBoston, MA 02110
- Phone: 617-482-2773
- Fax: 617-451-6383
- Website: http://plsma.org/
- Email: jwhite@plsma.org
Prisoners' Legal Services is a non-profit legal services provider for people who are incarcerated in state prisons and county jails throughout Massachusetts. This includes persons who are pre-trial, sentenced, or civilly committed, and persons who are detained by ICE. PLS was founded in 1972 during a groundswell of prisoners' justice movements throughout the United States. PLS advocates for prisoners' civil rights through administrative advocacy, litigation, education, and public policy work. PLS' prioritizes providing assistance in the areas of excessive use of force against prisoners by correctional staff, inadequate mental health and medical care, solitary confinement, extreme conditions of confinement, and parole, including medical parole, also known as compassionate release. PLS has approximately 20 staff persons and we serve all of the approximately 15 thousand people incarcerated in the Commonwealth.
For more information about our pro bono opportunities, please visit here.
- State(s) of Volunteer Opportunity: Massachusetts
- Area of law: Civil Rights, Prisoners
- Populations Served: Communities of Color, Detained individuals, Domestic Violence Victims, Elderly, Immigrants, Individuals who are not in legal immigration status, Individuals with criminal histories, Individuals with physical/mental disabilities, Lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender, Low Income, Persons with Disabilities, Prisoners/Criminal Defendants, Women
- Opportunities For: Lawyers, Senior Lawyers, Small and medium law firm attorneys
- Need for non-English services: Haitian Creole, Khmer, Portuguese, Signers for the deaf: ASL, Spanish, Vietnamese, Cape Verdean Creole
- Hours for Pro Bono Opportunities: Flexible, Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
- Malpractice insurance is provided for volunteers: No
- Training Provided: No
- Training Required: No
- CLE credit for trainings: No
- Training / Supervision Comments: We offer mentoring to attorney volunteers and are in some cases able to offer informal training as well as informational materials.
- CLE credit for pro bono: No
- Mentoring or supervision offered: Yes
- Volunteer lawyers need to meet a caseload or hours requirement: No
- Other Case Load Requirements: No
- Types of projects in need of Pro Bono help: Litigation: Appellate, Litigation: Class actions, Litigation: Impact, Litigation: Support (e.g., discovery), Litigation: Trial/Direct Representation
- Volunteers may participate long-distance: Yes
