You are part of the solution – and so is Diego Cartagena!

Removing barriers to justice takes a network. . . the OneJustice network.

OneJustice supports a network of 100+ nonprofit legal organizations, law firms, law schools and businesses. Each year this network provides life-saving legal help to over 275,000 Californians facing legal barriers to basic life necessities and core civil rights. You – like everyone in our network – are an essential part of the solution to the fact that millions of our neighbors suffer needlessly from solvable legal problems.

In honor of the work that our network does, each month we’ll feature an interview with a different participant in the network. This month we interviewed Diego Cartagena, Pro Bono Director at Bet Tzedek Legal Services and a member of the OneJustice Board of Directors.

Diego, you have many years of experience managing pro bono delivery systems at various legal services programs in the OneJustice network. How has that experience informed your work with OneJustice?

I started my career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice. In launching the Teen LA project, I focused on helping to give low-income teen mothers and fathers a voice in court by providing them with legal advocacy and outreach in the areas of family and immigration law. I then went on to serve as Pro Bono Director for the Alliance for Children’s Rights, while simultaneously serving as the agency’s Probate Legal Guardianship Program Director. Now I serve as the Pro Bono Director at Bet Tzedek Legal Services, where I continue to leverage the power of the private sector to provide much-needed legal assistance to our clients.

I have worked closely with OneJustice on a variety on pro bono projects during my time at Bet Tzedek and also the Alliance for Children’s Rights. OneJustice supports a network of legal services nonprofits in the Southern California region, with a special focus on strengthening and expanding the pro bono delivery system. With OneJustice’s staffing and support, we are able to come together and work jointly on collaborative pro bono programs – including the www.SoCalProBono.org website, joint MCLE trainings and events for pro bono volunteers, and strategic planning meetings for the Southern California region. In my role as Pro Bono Director, I also work directly with OneJustice staff on all of these important efforts.

OneJustice supports a network of legal services nonprofits that collaborate on SoCalProBono.org.

Tell us about your most recent collaboration with OneJustice?

Recently I had the pleasure of working with OneJustice’s Los Angeles office – Senior Staff Attorney Monica Mar and Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Fellow Cynthia Luna – to plan and deliver a Justice Bus Trip to serve seniors in Lancaster. There is a substantial need for legal help for low-income seniors living in the Lancaster area, and it can be quite challenging to deliver services to them.

Through our Justice Bus collaborative, we traveled with six Southwestern law student volunteers to set up a free legal clinic at the Lancaster Senior Center. Thanks to OneJustice, in one single afternoon we were able to conduct intake interviews and even some on-the-spot advice and counsel for 22 seniors who had been on an extensive waitlist. They are now on the path to having their legal issues addressed. We hope to do more Justice Bus Trips with OneJustice in 2013!

What do you enjoy about working with OneJustice?

OneJustice is an innovative and forward-looking organization that always keeps its eye on the ultimate goal – expanding the legal help available to Californians who are facing legal barriers to basic life necessities. I enjoy the truly generative work of the OneJustice Board to frame the service gaps in the state and identify ways to bridge those gaps, and then I appreciate being able to work together with OneJustice staff to make those creative ideas into on-the-ground projects that make a real difference in people’s lives.

Which of OneJustice’s initiatives for 2013 most excites you?

Seniors living in rural and isolated areas face additional barriers to justice. The Justice Bus delivers teams of volunteers to their community.

Of course as someone who started my career at agencies serving youth and children, I am proud of OneJustice’s initiative to expand services for families – particularly in the areas of immigration and special education. Given my current work at Bet Tzedek – and the profound challenges of bringing much-needed legal help to seniors living in rural and isolated areas of the state – I have to say that I am most excited about the Seniors Legal Aid Fund that will ensure increased nonprofit management support for legal services organizations serving seniors and more Justice Bus Trips to bring teams of pro bono volunteers to help seniors in places like Lancaster and others. I definitely will be involved in those efforts in 2013!

We make a life by what we give…….Happy #GivingTuesday!

A creative way we can all take a little U-turn back to giving thanks…..and giving…..in the middle of these days so focused on getting.

With two teenaged daughters in my house, the last several days were pretty focused on getting things! Black Friday and Cyber Monday fascinated my daughters, who were appalled that our family didn’t have big plans for tracking down the deals. Instead, we focused on shopping small on Small Business Saturday (see OneJustice’s last blog post), and today — Tuesday November 27 — we are fired up for #GivingTuesday, a creative new way to remind us all to give back in this season of giving thanks.

OneJustice is a proud partner in the first annual #GivingTuesday, the day that also marks the official opening day of the giving season. We’re joining almost 2,000 nonprofits and corporations around the country to celebrate the work of nonprofits in our society – with the goal of driving donations of time, money, or services to charities with the same enthusiasm that shoppers have on Black Friday.

It is a beautifully simple idea, and one that calls on ideals and values that are at the core of American society. First, find a way to give back – through your local school, faith-based organization, charity – maybe even through OneJustice! Then tell others in your network about what you did – and why it matters. #GivingTuesday is about reminding all of us that we are a generous people – with our time, our energy, and with our financial support.

How are you called to participate in acts of giving today, the first-ever #GivingTuesday?

One way to celebrate #GivingTuesday is to Give the Gift of Justice to veterans facing legal barriers to benefits and medical care, vulnerable seniors living in rural and isolated areas of the state, and low-income children who need legal help to access new immigration programs or educational services. Donate today to our Veterans, Seniors, or Children’s Legal Aid Funds, and your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar by a generous group of donors who are also exercising their generosity today as part of #GivingTuesday!

And then let’s all help spread the word! Then take a picture of yourself with a piece of paper proudly saying that you “Gave the Gift of Justice” on “#GivingTuesday” and post it to the #GivingTuesday facebook page and also the OneJustice facebook page.

However you decide to give back to your community, we thank you! The world is a better place because of your generosity. We look forward to celebrating #GivingTuesday with you every year.

What do small businesses need to thrive?

Are you surprised to hear that low-income business owners and entrepreneurs get help from nonprofit legal organizations?

Today is Small Business Saturday, a day to celebrate and support small businesses and all they do for our communities, designed as a complement to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the new Giving Tuesday. Today the U.S. Small Business Administration urges all of us to shop at small, locally-owned businesses to support our neighbors and strengthen our local economy.

Small businesses have a powerful impact on our communities and larger society. OneJustice supports using our consumer power to support small, local businesses – which are frequently a road out of poverty and toward self-sufficiency for low-income entrepreneurs and small business owners. (For more about entrepreneurship as a poverty alieviation strategy, read here.)

Just like large multi-national corporations, who access legal advice and representation by large law firms, small business owners and micro-entreprenuers often face pressing legal problems. For small businesses, a legal problem can be the difference between thriving and failure – but they usually cannot afford law firm billing rates. The free legal help provided to low-income small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs by organizations in the OneJustice network – like Public Law Center, Public Counsel, Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Volunteer Legal Services Program (legal help for non-profits), and others – can make all the difference.

The 2011 California Civil Justice Crisis Hearings — which were staffed by OneJustice — documented that businesses rely on a fully-funded civil court system – and small businesses and entrepreneurs need the help of nonprofit legal organizations. The Hearings Report found that:

“Small businesses, which often do not have the resources to pay for an attorney, depend on courts and the assistance of legal services to protect their interests and enforce their rights when they become subject to a wrongful increase in taxes or involved in a lawsuit.”

Small Business Owner Nina Jun testifies.

Nina Jun, small business owner, testifies about the important legal help she received from the Public Law Center and the pro bono firm Crowell & Moring, during the California Civil Justice Crisis Hearings.

A wonderful example is the testimony provided by Nina Jun, the owner of a small laundry business in Santa Ana. We were inspired to hear Nina’s testimony about how Public Law Center and pro bono attorneys from the firm of Crowell & Moring helped her fight the wrongful increase of her taxes by approximately $4,000. You can hear Nina’s testimony first-hand in the video above.

Nina reported that – “For a small business like mine, an increase of this amount in tax is big . . . It was not only a monetary victory, but it was a triumph [of] spirit and the pride of . . . small businesses, who are looking for justice.”

Infographic showing the power of small businesses

The Power of Small Businesses – they contribute positively to their local communities and create new jobs!

So, SHOP SMALL AND LOCAL today on Small Business Saturday. Our community small businesses need all of us – consumers and nonprofit legal organizations – to help them survive and thrive in today’s complex and competitive business sector. And not only will you be supporting the local economy – you might just be supporting someone’s path out of poverty to self-sufficiency.

WE WANT TO KNOW – what is your favorite local, small business that you can support today? Share in the comments here or on our facebook page or LinkedIn page! (You can also find maps of small businesses in your area participating in Small Business Saturday here.)

Thank you to the OneJustice network – chock full of philanthropists

Philanthropy – the gift that keeps on giving (and it’s not just about huge foundations and folks giving away millions!)

Philanthropy is not like monopoly!

Did you know that today – November 15 – is National Philanthropy Day?

Okay, we know what you are thinking! Sometimes when folks say “philanthropy,” the images that spring to mind have more to do with huge foundations or folks who are able to give away millions each year.

But the reality is that philanthropy – which basically means “love of mankind” – is something that so many people do to support the social causes they believe in. They volunteer. They serve as mentors. They staff events. They participate in conversations in social media. They march in protests. They cook and deliver meals. And they do give – generously – to financially support the work of the nonprofits in their communities.

We heart the OneJustice Network!

At OneJustice, we view National Philanthropy Day as our own special thanksgiving day. While it doesn’t mean we get turkey, it does mean that we get another day when we get to recognize and thank our wonderful network of supporters – which includes folks who volunteer, go on Justice Bus trips, staff trainings and events, volunteer in our office, engage with us online, and yes, who also give generous financial support because they share our vision for a more just world and they support our strategies for getting there.

So for National Philanthropy Day (aka at OneJustice as “We love our network day”), we have a little thank you video for all the OneJustice philanthropists! Thank you!

Thank you from everyone at OneJustice to our supporters, collaborators, and stakeholders!

National Philanthropy Day is the day set aside to recognize and pay tribute to the great contributions that philanthropy – and those people who are active philanthropists – have made to our lives, our communities, and our world. This year, over 120 communities and 50,000 people around the world will celebrate the power of giving in their lives.

And for all you philanthropists who are inspired to support OneJustice’s work, we’ve launched our fall “Life isn’t fair, but justice should be” campaign. Our goal is to raise $60,000 between now and the end of the year to increase legal help for veterans, vulnerable seniors, and low-income children and youth in 2013. It’s easy to give online or download a form to send with a check. You are our justice heroes – and you make the work possible. Thank you for your support!

How will you honor those who served our country? How about giving the gift of justice?

I was shocked to learn recently that there are 400 rural veterans facing legal barriers to benefits and medical care they need – and that they are over 300 miles from the closest nonprofit legal organization that can help!

To be honest, I was always a little bit vague about what exactly we’re supposed to do on Veterans Day. I know it is a day to honor all the brave women and men who have served our country in the armed services – but it was never more specific than that for me. Until now.

Several weeks ago, the OneJustice Pro Bono Team received a call from Chief Judge Abby Abinanti of the Yurok Tribal Court – with some shocking news and a request for help. She was calling because there are around 400 members of the tribe who are also U.S. veterans who are facing legal barriers to critically important benefits and medical care. And they are over 300 miles – 7 hours by car – from the closest legal nonprofit organization that can help them.

So – clearly that calls for a Justice Bus response! Of course there were some possible obstacles – but we quickly solved them. Yes, it will be the farthest we’ve ever taken the Justice Bus Project- but University of San Francisco Law School readily agreed to have their students travel the distance to help. Never mind that we need a new nonprofit partner – we had already been talking to Swords to Plowshares about working together to do Justice Bus trips to serve veterans in rural and isolated parts of Northern California.

Now the only remaining barrier to getting on the road should also be easy to overcome – the funding to cover the costs of the long bus ride and accommodations for the student volunteers willing to donate their time and energy to deliver free legal clinics in three locations – Eureka, Klamath, and Hoopa – over two days.

The trip will take $10,000. Two generous donors each already donated $2,500 because they were so moved by the story of these veterans. This means we have just $5,000 to go and we will be able to gear up some mobile justice.

So, we need YOUR HELP. If 500 people in the OneJustice network each give just $10 on Veterans Day, we’ll be able to get the bus on the road. We can do this through collective action – we can stretch the legal safety net in our state to include these veterans who have asked for our help.

It’s easy to give online (just click HERE). Just make your donation and designate the Veterans Legal Aid Fund. Or download a donation form HERE and send in a check. Literally every dollar gets us closer to making this trip a reality. If you give in honor of a veteran or service member in your life, we will list their name on our Wall of Honor for one year and read their name aloud as the Justice Bus starts its trip north in early January 2013.

So – this Veterans Day I will be carrying the knowledge of these 400 Yurok veterans in need in my heart. It is an incredible honor to be invited into their lives to provide access to the legal help they need – and with that honor comes the responsibility to respond. They already served for us. Now the time has come when we can serve them.

My grandfather served 5 years in the army, including 26 months in New Guinea during WWII

My grandfather, Charles Ward Henson II, with his children, my father and aunt.

My grandfather, who passed away before I was born, served for 5 years in the army – including 26 months in New Guinea during World War II. This Sunday, at 11am, I will proudly make my own personal donation in his name to make this trip possible. I hope you will join me in giving the gift of justice to these veterans!

Thank you for your support – we are honored by your charitable investment in our work!