It helped pioneer a nationwide legal aid movement whose leaders held to a simple but profound principle: that rich and poor alike are entitled to equal treatment under the law.
In a statement of purpose published in 1906, the founders wrote, legal aid is based on the principle that justice is the right of all men, and aims to put the rich and poor on an actual equality before the law.
A focus of Legal Aid in its beginning years was working for passage of legislation aimed at unconscionable practices of businesses that preyed on low-income persons.
Under the guidance of Claude Clarke in 1919, Legal Aid saw an increase in revenue and diversity of cases, as well as the creation of beneficial relationships with the city's social welfare agencies.
[7] In 1966, under the leadership of then director and later Common Pleas Court Judge Burt Griffin, Legal Aid established five offices in low-income Cleveland neighborhoods.
Legal Aid has helped to eliminate racial discrimination in site selection for public housing and promotion of Cleveland police and firefighters, blocked termination of SSI and Social Security disability benefits without proper evidence, improved area jails and mental hospitals, established the right to counsel in commitment proceedings and misdemeanor cases, expanded vocational educational opportunities for Vietnam War Veterans and obtained benefits for victims of industrial air pollution.
In 1977, Legal Aid prevailed in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the rights of an extended family to live together in Moore v. City of East Cleveland.
[citation needed] Today, Legal Aid is led by Executive Director Colleen Cotter and operates four offices serving Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain, and Geauga counties.
[citation needed] Every year, Legal Aid serves approximately 17,000 people who reside within its five-county service area and have incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty limit.