Bet Tzedek Legal Services – The House of Justice

Bet Tzedek

Founded	1974 (1974), Los Angeles, CA, United States
Type	NGO non-profit organization
Focus	Civil Rights Humanitarian Aid
Headquarters	Los Angeles County
Website	www.bettzedek.org/

Bet Tzedek is an American nonprofit human and poverty rights organization based in Los Angeles, California.

Bet Tzedek's commitment to human rights stems from a central tenet of Jewish law and teaching: "Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice you shall pursue." Its name means "House of Justice."

The organization provides pro bono person-centered legal services that integrate with social support services, educates community members with the powerful knowledge of their legal rights, and uses its collective voice to reform systems through policy advocacy and impact litigation.

From its humble beginnings at a small office on Fairfax Blvd. with a staff of part-time volunteers, Bet Tzedek has grown into one of the largest legal aid organizations in Los Angeles County. They are a nationally recognized leader in providing legal assistance to low-income seniors, adults, and their families; leaders in promoting economic security through their employment rights and small business efforts; and one of only two major agencies in the nation to offer free legal services to aging Holocaust survivors.

Throughout its 50 years of providing free legal services, Bet Tzedek has helped nearly 1 million people in the Los Angeles region and beyond.

History

Bet Tzedek was founded in 1974 by a group of Jewish attorneys concerned about human rights issues and humanitarian needs in Los Angeles. The group's volunteer attorneys provided free legal representation to low-income residents of Los Angeles. As the need skyrocketed throughout the mid-1970s, Bet Tzedek rapidly evolved from a part-time, volunteer-run organization into a comprehensive, full-service center providing free legal aid to all of Los Angeles.

In its early years, most of Bet Tzedek's services were provided to low-income Jews in need of assistance writing wills or obtaining unemployment benefits. By the 1980s, their services had grown enough for them to move into a larger office, where they began to focus on unlawful eviction cases. About half of Bet Tzedek's cases in 1980 were landlord-tenant disputes. Many of their clients during this period were elderly and/or immigrant residents in the Fairfax district. With a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging, Bet Tzedek launches the City LAWS Program to send attorneys to senior centers to help with their legal needs in 1981.

In 1984, Bet Tzedek won a landmark decision that provided support to thousands of low-income, elderly Holocaust survivors. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of Felicia Grunfeder, a Bet Tzedek client and Holocaust survivor who had been denied disability benefits because she received a small survivors’ reparations payment. After multiple appeals, the federal courts ruled that Holocaust reparations payments cannot preclude disability payments, and state and federal legislation subsequently codified the decision. In 1987, after a four-year legal battle, Bet Tzedek successfully negotiated a settlement ensuring elderly, long-term residents could remain in the refurbished Cadillac Hotel on the Venice boardwalk for the duration of their lives. This agreement preserved their current low rent and shielded them from further eviction threats. Additionally, in 1989, Bet Tzedek established a Home Equity Task Force to combat the increasing incidence of con artists targeting elderly homeowners for property theft.

Bet Tzedek extended emergency legal aid during and following the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which erupted after the acquittal of four LAPD officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, a black motorist. The organization initiated a program to support businesses affected by the riots. Mayor Tom Bradley praised Bet Tzedek for their assistance during and after the social upheaval. Additionally, in the same year, Bet Tzedek partnered with the Alzheimer's Association to create the El Portal Project, aimed at supporting Spanish-speaking families caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease, thanks to a grant from the federal Health Resources Services Agency.

In the early 1990s, Bet Tzedek sued a national HMO alleging fraud and deceptive sales practices in the HMO's racially targeted victimization of elderly Spanish-speaking enrollees. Ensuing media coverage prompted a federal investigation and a stockholder suit against the company and Bet Tzedek successfully settled the underlying case.

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Bet Tzedek offered urgent aid to those affected by the disaster, addressing housing challenges, cases of home improvement fraud, and assisting with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) claims. Additionally, in the same year, Bet Tzedek broadened its Housing Conditions Project to actively support low-income families residing in substandard living conditions, utilizing litigation and public policy advocacy as part of their efforts.

In 1995, Bet Tzedek initiatives revealed grossly negligent conditions in Los Angeles area nursing homes, leading to several high-profile deaths of patients. To address this, Bet Tzedek sponsored major state legislation that provided new standards and protections for low-income elderly residents who were most at risk for elder abuse. In 1999, Bet Tzedek's lawsuit against Hillhaven, one of the largest nursing home chains in the country, resulted in the company agreeing to change business practices that violated state and federal law and led to financial hardship for residents and their families.

In 1998, Bet Tzedek brought a major class-action suit with pro bono counsel against 16 European-based insurance companies who refused to honor insurance policies purchased by Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Bet Tzedek continues to assist survivors with issues centered in the governments of former Nazi nations.

In 2001, it was reported that 61% of Los Angeles apparel contractors were violating wage and hour laws. Bet Tzedek opened the Employment Rights Project in the San Fernando Valley in response to the growing numbers of “working poor” in Los Angeles, who remained in poverty despite working full-time as garment workers, day laborers, domestics, car wash employees, and gardeners.

In 2002, Bet Tzedek investigated the city's most-convicted slumlord, discovering multiple fraudulent practices. After filing a lawsuit, Bet Tzedek obtained a major settlement requiring the slumlord to pay $1 million to the City of L.A. and submit to ongoing monitoring of his business practices by Bet Tzedek.

In 2004, Bet Tzedek helped pass a new state law and established a new legal precedent protecting garment workers, ensuring the safety and proper treatment of hundreds of thousands of workers in L.A. alone.

In 2012, Bet Tzedek moved from its longtime headquarters in Los Angeles' historically Jewish Fairfax District to a new headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown. The move was motivated in part because Bet Tzedek's services were no longer being provided primarily to Jews, and because the organization desired a more centralized location.

Services and programs

Bet Tzedek's services include legal advice, counseling and representation at trials, administrative hearings, and appeals. Bet Tzedek also offers educational programs to clients and other service providers. Services at Bet Tzedek are provided through the following programs:

Current areas of focus:

Justice for Seniors & Dependent Adults

As a nationally recognized leader in providing legal assistance to low-income seniors, Bet Tzedek helps improve the quality of life of older adults, dependent adults, and their families. We are the only legal services provider in Los Angeles with programs focused on protecting older and dependent adults and one of just two major legal service agencies in the nation offering free legal advice and assistance to aging Holocaust survivors. Because everyone deserves to age with dignity, we provide holistic legal help to meet seniors and dependent adults’ comprehensive needs.

• Elder Justice Program: Bet Tzedek helps seniors access justice in the face of abuse. We work with social service and law enforcement agencies to prevent and address exploitation, particularly in impoverished and rural communities.
• Holocaust Services Program: Since our founding in 1974, Bet Tzedek has honored the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust by serving those who survived. Our staff and pro bono attorneys partner with Jewish social service providers across the country to bring free legal assistance to Holocaust survivors. We help survivors secure Holocaust reparations and wrap-around legal services here in Los Angeles, and train pro bono volunteers across the U.S seeking to assist survivors through our Holocaust Survivors Justice Network (HSJN).
• Advance Planning & Supported Decision-Making: Bet Tzedek supports individuals and families with creating advanced healthcare directives, powers-of-attorney, and wills. These legal documents allow individuals to share end-of-life medical wishes with loved ones when they can no longer speak for themselves and to securely pass on their assets to the next generation.
• Self-Help Conservatorship Clinic: Bet Tzedek provides extensive legal information for certain conservatorship matters through our Self-Help Conservatorship Clinic. As opposed to providing legal advice or representing individuals and families in court, these tools empower communities to take action on their own behalf. This can be useful when individuals are requesting decision-making authority over another adult who is unable to take care of themselves and/or manage their finances.
• Conservatorship: Bet Tzedek helps families and community members choose the best option for loved ones who lack the capacity to make their own legal, financial, or medical decisions. In limited situations, we offer legal representation in conservatorship matters to have a judge appoint a conservator to oversee the daily care and/or the financial affairs of another adult.
• HealthCare Benefits - Medi-Cal / IHSS: Bet Tzedek helps seniors and dependent adults access crucial healthcare and other public benefits. We assist with social security overpayment notices, denials, and appeals and access to healthcare coverage, In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) caregiver benefits, and Section 8 rental vouchers.
• Guardianship of Grandchildren and Other Minors: When parents aren’t able to care for their children, family members can step in to serve as caregivers. Bet Tzedek provides support for older adults caring for their grandchildren — or other minors — by helping them find resources and navigate the systems that ensure their family’s well-being. This includes: guardianship, adoption, foster care benefits, and educational benefits.
• Elder Abuse Restraining Order (EARO) Clinic: Older adults who are being treated in any way that abused in any of way that causes physical harm, pain, or mental suffering (physical or emotional abuse, neglect, financial abuse, abandonment or isolation) or are feeling afraid or controlled by a family member, a spouse/partner or former spouse/partner, or a caregiver can ask for legal protection by filing for a restraining order against their abuser. As a self-help service, the EARO Clinic talks with callers, provides information and assembles restraining order petitions for callers to file at their local courthouse.
• Leaving a Legacy: An Estate Planning Program: Launched in 2023, the Leaving the Legacy Program provides a broad range of estate planning tools to eligible residents of Los Angeles County. The project aims to empower individuals today with important estate planning tools and create a better tomorrow for their families by preserving assets and creating an opportunity for intergenerational wealth.

Justice for Taxpayers, Workers & Small Businesses

Bet Tzedek lifts individuals and communities out of poverty by providing education, legal guidance, and direct representation for low-wage workers and small businesses from across the city. By creating pathways to economic justice and financial stability, we empower low-wage workers, help low-income clients address disputes with the IRS and State Franchise Tax Board, and support small business owners in starting, maintaining, and growing their businesses.

• Low-Income Taxpayer Initiative: Launched in 2014, our taxpayer clinic helps low-income families and individuals resolve issues related to collections, audits, appeals, misclassifications, innocent spouse relief, liens, and garnishments with the IRS and California Franchise Tax Board. We help households navigate these complicated bureaucracies so that they can reduce improper tax assessments, negotiate affordable resolutions to tax liabilities, and end inappropriate IRS collection efforts. We are formally recognized by the IRS as an official Low Income Tax Clinic (LITC).
• Employment Rights Project: The Employment Rights Project helps low-wage workers obtain fair wages and safe working conditions. We educate workers on workplace rights and provide direct representation on individual and class action cases to help workers recoup stolen wages. And as one of the few agencies in California able to represent undocumented immigrants, we can support the communities who comprise a major share of Los Angeles County’s low-wage workforce and are the most frequent targets for employer abuses and exploitation.
• Employment Rights Project Clinic: The Employment Rights Project hosts a weekly clinic for all residents of L.A. County, regardless of immigration status, providing legal advice about employment, such as issues with unpaid wages, sick pay and leave, workplace safety, workplace discrimination or harassment, or workplace retaliation.
• Small Business Development Project: Small businesses are a key part of local economies and infrastructure. Our Small Business Development Project supports small business owners through legal representation and educational resources. We partner with the County and City of Los Angeles, business community groups, and economic development organizations to provide education, resources, and one-on-one legal assistance. Additionally, our Small Business Legal Academy teaches owners about forming a business, leasing commercial space, understanding contracts, fair employee practices, protecting their intellectual property, and more.

Justice for Tenants, Homeowners & Unhoused Individuals

Bet Tzedek advocates for families and individuals to ensure access to stable, habitable, and affordable housing. By providing education, representation, and pathways to legal resources, we help tenants and homeowners remain housed, assist those who are experiencing homelessness, and uphold the belief that housing is a universal right.

• Eviction Defense Program: Bet Tzedek supports tenants struggling with rent increases, evictions, and landlord harassments by providing them with legal representation when they cannot afford to pay for an attorney. We engage in this work as part of Stay Housed L.A., a partnership between Los Angeles County, the City of Los Angeles, and local community and legal service providers that works to keep people in their homes.
• Preventing and Ending Homelessness Project (PEHP): Bet Tzedek provides legal services and advocacy to families and individuals who experience homelessness or are at risk of becoming homeless. This includes: defending unlawful evictions, accessing public benefits, expunging criminal records, and more. Since 2018, we have served as a member of PEHP, a consortium of the region’s top public interest law firms providing legal aid to unhoused individuals and those facing housing insecurity.
• Home Ownership Protection: Bet Tzedek provides education and legal support to help low-income homeowners understand their rights and protect themselves from losing their homes to fraud and foreclosures.
• Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE): Bet Tzedek provides legal assistance to homeowners who have experienced fraud, misrepresentation, increased property tax assessments, and more, related to PACE, a financing program that offers loans for green energy home improvements that are repaid through annual property tax assessments.
• Foreclosure Prevention: Bet Tzedek, in partnership with Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles, provides legal advice, legal information, housing counseling, and referrals to homeowners who are behind on their mortgage or at risk of foreclosure. Our clinic is located in Antelope Valley but can be accessed remotely by Zoom. If you are a homeowner anywhere in Los Angeles County, please apply to see if you are eligible for a free and confidential clinic appointment with a housing counselor and legal services attorney.
• Foreclosure Prevention: Bet Tzedek, in partnership with Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles, provides legal advice, legal information, housing counseling, and referrals to homeowners who are behind on their mortgage or at risk of foreclosure. Our clinic is located in Antelope Valley but can be accessed remotely by Zoom. If you are a homeowner anywhere in Los Angeles County, please apply to see if you are eligible for a free and confidential clinic appointment with a housing counselor and legal services attorney.

Justice for Children & Families

Bet Tzedek provides legal assistance to children and families who need help securing legal U.S. residency, obtaining legal guardianship, securing gender affirming identification documents, or accessing public benefits and resources. We support children with diverse experiences, including those who are unaccompanied and seeking refuge in the United States, those raised by family relatives other than their own parents, and those who identify as transgender and gender non-conforming. We also support guardians seeking legal protection for these children.

• Guardianships for Minors: When parents aren’t able to care for their children, family members oftentimes step in to serve as caregivers. Bet Tzedek supports these caregivers by helping them secure legal guardianship of these children and, in the process, ensuring the children’s physical and emotional well-being. We also support adults caring for children by helping them access benefits and navigate processes that ensure their family’s well-being, including adoption, foster care benefits, and educational benefits.
• Undocumented Minors: Bet Tzedek connects undocumented children with legal guardians to ensure their wellbeing and prevent them from falling into the foster care system. We also help obtain Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, asylum, or other forms of relief for undocumented children so they can remain safely in the U.S. As a national leader in this effort, we train pro bono volunteers in special proceedings and advise legislators on changes to improve immigration policies.
• Medical-Legal Partnership @ Harbor UCLA Medical Center: Bet Tzedek partners with Harbor-UCLA Medical Center to provide free legal services to help patients and their families with legal problems that harm their health. Our legal team works closely with hospital physicians and social workers to holistically address patients’ wellbeing. If you are a patient at Harbor-UCLA, please call (426) 306-7205 to make an appointment with the legal team or ask your provider to refer you.
• Rights for Transgender Youth: Since 2016, Bet Tzedek has worked with organizations, such as the LGBT Bar Association of Los Angeles, to ensure transgender youth have access to medical care and coverage, live free from discrimination at school, and receive accurate gender identity recognition under the law.

Justice for Transgender Individuals

Bet Tzedek is committed to pursuing justice for people of all gender identities and expressions. We leverage our unique legal expertise, extensive pro bono resources, and long-standing partnerships with trusted leaders and organizations in the LGBTQ+ community to support transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals. Bet Tzedek helps members of the transgender community receive access to medical care and coverage; live free from employment discrimination and retaliation; negotiate landlord-tenant disputes, evictions, and denials to housing or shelter; and fight discrimination at school.

• Transgender Legal Rights Program: We advocate for gender affirming rights by offering clinics and direct representation to help individuals with health insurance and benefits denials, discrimination in housing and employment, and public accommodations.
• Transgender Legal Name and Gender Marker Change: Bet Tzedek supports transgender and gender non-conforming individuals with updating their legal names and gender markers on identification documents to align with their gender identity. These documents are essential for applying for public benefits, receiving healthcare, starting new jobs, and enrolling in school.

Previous categories of areas of focus:

Consumer fraud

Bet Tzedek's Consumer Protection Unit litigates consumer fraud cases in a variety of areas, including home equity fraud, telemarketing, automobile financing, and health care marketing, and door-to-door sales. Additionally the Consumer Protection Unit provides educational programs throughout Los Angeles County to help residents recognize and avoid fraud. Bet Tzedek also collaborates with various law enforcement agencies and legal services providers to target the most notorious scam artists.

Employment rights

Bet Tzedek's Employment Rights Project advocates on behalf of a variety of low-wage workers, including Day Laborers, domestic workers, and those working in the garment, construction, car wash, restaurant and janitorial industries. The Project represents low-wage workers, regardless of their immigration status, who have been illegally denied wages that they have earned. Client services range from brief advice, counseling and informal advocacy, to representation in hearings before the California Labor Commissioner and litigation in state and federal courts.

Family Caregiver Project

Janet Morris provides essential services to family caregivers.

AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that 4.3 million adults in the State of California provide unpaid care to an adult relative or friend. The total value of familycaregiving is estimated at $276 billion. Caregivers usually do not quit their jobs, or leave their personal relationships, to offer care to their relatives. The Family Caregiving Project at Bet Tzedek responds by providing expert legal counsel, advice and representation to English, Spanish and Chinese speaking adults who care for a loved-one afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, dementia or other debilitating illnesses.

Director of the Bet Tzedek Legal Services Family Caregiver Project, Janet Moris, serves caregivers throughout Los Angeles County with essential education, referrals and legal services. Bet Tzedek Legal Services staff make presentations to over 2,000 family members, social workers, and service professionals annually.

Government benefits

Bet Tzedek represents clients on a range of state and federal government benefits, including Social Security, Medi-Cal, Medicare, SSI/SSDI (Disability), in-home supportive services, veterans' benefits, CalWORKS, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), WIC, and Adoption Assistance, KinGAP. Bet Tzedek represents clients in appeals, helps clients to apply for benefits, and identifies appropriate programs.

Holocaust reparations

Bet Tzedek Legal Services is the only agency in the world that offers free assistance to Holocaust survivors applying for reparations, pensions and other benefits from Germany and other European countries. Bet Tzedek has also worked on other survivor issues, including Holocaust-era insurance coverage, the effect of reparations on eligibility for public benefits, and the waiver of wire transfer fees for survivors who receive reparations.

Housing

The Housing Law Project provides legal assistance to tenants in Los Angeles County facing eviction actions and illegal housing conditions. The elderly and persons with disabilities are the focus of much of the service because they are often targeted for eviction in order to circumvent the rent stabilization laws and bring in new tenants at higher rents. The project's attorney represents these clients, develops solutions to systematic housing legal problems, and recruits, trains, and supervises a network of volunteer attorneys.

Sydney M. Irmas Housing Conditions Project

Bet Tzedek's Sydney M. Irmas Housing Conditions Project is underwritten by a grant from the Irmas Family Foundation to help low-income families secure safe, affordable housing. In 2001, the Irmas Project brought landmark litigation on behalf of tenants' rights group Inquilinos Unidos against one of the most notorious landlords in Los Angeles. The lawsuit was later joined by the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, and the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher served as pro bono counsel on the suit. This case represented a landmark victory in the battle against landlords who subject their tenants to substandard health and safety conditions and set a significant precedent in the ability of tenants' groups to successfully prosecute owners attempting to hide behind a web of business identities.

Eviction Defense Project

The Eviction Defense Project at Bet Tzedek Legal Services provides advice, counsel and representation those in need of assistance. Bet Tzedek accepts eviction cases on an individual basis, and screens all cases for merit. Annually, Bet Tzedek serves as counsel for 100 families who face illegal eviction from their apartments, with a success rate of over 90 percent.

Kinship care

Bet Tzedek Legal Services created the Kinship Care Project in 2002 to address the needs of the more than 88,000 children in Los Angeles County who live with their grandparents. The Kinship Care Project offers a variety of services to grandparents and others who are raising their young family members. For the last five years, Bet Tzedek has offered free legal services to these families.

Bet Tzedek's Kinship Care Project is unique in Los Angeles County, as no other service provider focuses on this population. Additionally, Bet Tzedek Legal Services published Southern California's first comprehensive guide for relative caregivers, Caring for a Relative's Child. The guide is available in both English and Spanish, and is the primary resource of its kind used by social workers throughout Los Angeles County.

Nursing Home Advocacy Project

The Nursing Home Advocacy Project (NHAP) has been a signature program that has shaped the development of Bet Tzedek's elderlaw practice. The project was established in response to a need for effective legal assistance for residents of nursing homes. Today, Bet Tzedek works to improve the quality of care for the institutionalized elderly and provides legal protection against abuse and neglect through advice, education, advocacy, and litigation. Among the many milestones in NHAP's history are:

• Comprehensive legislation to reform admissions and discharge practices and financial responsibility and billing practices by nursing homes.
• A landmark study of Los Angeles County nursing homes, which brought to light serious noncompliance with state and federal regulations and prompted the passage of reform legislation
• Major litigation against a national nursing home chain for fraudulent admissions contracts, resulting in sweeping national changes.

NHAP has published the following consumer guides: "The Nursing Home Companion" (in English and Spanish); "If Only I Had Known: Misrepresentations Made by Nursing Homes" (published with a grant from the Archstone Foundation), and "How to Get Care From a Residential Care Facility". Over 200,000 copies of these guides have been distributed nationally, and they remain the first resource consulted by ombudspersons throughout California.

Senior legal services

For more than two decades, Bet Tzedek has served the legal needs of low-income seniors in Los Angeles. Bet Tzedek is the exclusive provider of free legal services to low-income seniors through contracts with the City and County of Los Angeles. Bet Tzedek staff address legal issues that affect seniors such as consumer fraud and elder abuse, nursing homes and residential care facilities, public benefits, family and kinship caregiver needs, and housing. Bet Tzedek staff regularly meet with clients at more than 30 senior centers in Greater Los Angeles County. In addition to providing one-on-one services, Bet Tzedek has developed four new legal clinics designed to help seniors help themselves. Each clinic provides an overview of a particular legal issue and guides seniors in the preparation of the appropriate legal documents.