Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals
1. Speaker Bio:
Susan E. Prensky: Spent 15 years organizing low-income service workers from NJ to Boston . This experience taught her the need, and general unavailability of meaningful access to the courts for poor and working people. In 1998 she took on the lead role as Operations Manager of New York State Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals (CCLP). She has been a professional volunteer organizer for over 38 years.
Peggy Foy, Esq.: A member of NYS CCLP Board of Directors, Ms. Foy is a long-time resident of Suffolk County and graduate of Touro Law School. She has been a practicing attorney for over 25 years, with a concentration in family law and criminal defense. She currently volunteers with CCLP providing pro bono legal advice and speaking at “Know Your Law” sessions.
2. Mission and topic of the speaker:
Topic: What a difference meaningful access to legal recourse makes in the lives of low-income people.
Mission: COALITION OF CONCERNED LEGAL PROFESSIONALS (CCLP) is an all-volunteer, non-government funded association of legal professionals who work with organizations whose members find gaining access to legal recourse increasingly difficult. Volunteer attorneys assisted by lay volunteer advocates provide free of charge legal advice to members of organizations of service workers, temporary workers, independent contractors, manual laborers and other low-income workers without job protections, struggling to survive in today’s “gig” economy. Volunteer lawyers also conduct free-of-charge “Know Your Law” information sessions for membership organizations on areas of law including employment rights, wage theft, immigration, debt and credit issues and landlord-tenant law.
Through these sessions, CCLP has benefited thousands: we have saved homes from foreclosure; prevented evictions; won back wages owed, but not paid; assisted with immigration problems; protected people from consumer debt they did not owe and more. As volunteer advocates guide those making requests for assistance through the process of resolving legal problems, participants are united to build organizational solutions in their communities, utilizing an array of activities to publicize their efforts and contact all those affected by the problem – Including the legal sessions; production of posters, fliers and other publications; letter writing, phone calls and presentations at public hearings, in classrooms at universities, unions, churches and other organizations.
For information or to find out about volunteering, please call CCLP today, at (212) 791-1364.