[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're now joined by Jessica Kitson, director of legal advocacy at the Volunteer Lawyers for Justice Organization.

We'll put the website up.

Jessica, great to have you with us.

- Thanks so much, Steve.

Great to be here.

- Website's up, tell everyone what Volunteer Lawyers for Justice is all about.

- Sure, Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, or VLJ as we often go by, is a civil legal services organization.

We're based in Newark, New Jersey.

We're about to celebrate 25 years of providing free legal services to New Jerseyans.

- Who are the folks who need the legal services you're talking about?

- You know, VLJ's mission is to ensure access to justice for people living in poverty.

And so the people most in need are the people who can least access legal services and yet are forced to interact every day with a legal system that was designed by lawyers for lawyers.

And so we focus our efforts on the most vulnerable New Jerseyans, the people who are in poverty and couldn't possibly hire their own attorney to help them.

- We're taping this program actually on Veterans Day.

Shout out to all of our veterans.

We thank you for your service to our nation.

In that spirit, your organization also has an initiative that deals directly with veterans: the Veterans Legal Program.

Please talk about that, A and B, what are some of the needs as it relates to civil law issues, legal issues having to do with civil, whatever, but I wanna stay we're staying away from criminal, correct?

- Yes, we do entirely civil work at VLJ.

- Okay.

- One of our programs and one of the issues that we help veterans with is criminal record expungement.

And so it's tangential certainly to the criminal legal system, but our Veterans Legal Program was started in 2012 in partnership with PSEG.

It has now grown to a program where we, twice a month, have free legal clinics for veterans to come and talk about their legal issues.

The issues that are most common, and in fact, a report in the past couple of years from the Department of Veterans Affairs said that seven of the 10 top needs for veterans are legal issues, including eviction defense, consumer debt issues, driver's license restoration, and criminal record expungement, among several others.

And so those are the issues that VLJ focuses on.

- Go back to criminal record expungement.

What is that and why?

What would be the need to expunge someone's criminal record?

- Right.

So it is not uncommon for someone to have a record for minor issues that have happened over the course of their lifetime.

Criminal legal involvement, unfortunately, is not all that uncommon.

And so what happens though is that someone has completed their sentence or paid the fines that they were ordered to pay, and yet they are plagued by a record that follows them every time they try to get a job, every time they try to get housing, to go to school to further their education.

And so New Jersey, along with most other states in the country, have expungement laws that allow people, after a certain amount of time and under certain conditions, to clear that record, give them a clean slate, and allow them to move forward and rebuild.

- Real quick follow up on this, we'll put up your website again, people go on your website.

They want help.

They need help.

How do they navigate it, Jessica?

- Yep, so our website allows someone to apply for services and they can fill out a quick form and that tells them that they're, you know, seeking information from us.

We streamline it so that if it's an issue we can't help with, we're not wasting anyone's time and we let them know right away and then they'll get a call from our office and they'll be scheduled to either talk directly to an attorney right away or be scheduled for one of our many legal clinics where either in person or virtually they come and have the opportunity to meet with some of our volunteers.

One of the things that VLJ does that we're so proud of is that our mission is to work directly with the private bar.

And so we work with volunteers from across the state who dedicate their time and provide free legal services so that we can increase the number of clients that are being served.

And that's true in our veterans program more than anywhere else.

We've been partnering with corporations like PSEG, Panasonic, and others for quite some time.

- Also, I know the Horizon and New Jersey manufacturers to our underwriters are engaged as well with volunteer and Lawyers for Justice.

Speaking of volunteers, 2024, some statistics that your organization, they've provided, 665 volunteers, donated more than 6,000 hours in free legal services valued at $2.2 million.

Who the heck are these lawyers and why are they volunteering, Jessica?

- They are the heroes, Steve.

They are people who are incredibly busy in their day-to-day life.

They are at some of New Jersey's leading law firms, leading corporations, solo practitioners, you name it, we are working with them and they have decided that they understand that we cannot have access to justice if people are forced to navigate the legal system alone.

And so they come to our legal clinics, they take cases for full representation, some of which, you know, take maybe a couple months, some take a couple of years, and they're giving free legal services and they are making sure that people have access to that person standing beside them at court.

- Last question, to what degree has the immigration, deportation, ice-related issues expanded the need of your services for those who are on the other end of trying to navigate immigration and immigration processes?

It's incredibly complex.

- It's incredibly complex and we are seeing it not only with individuals who seek out services for immigration help directly, but for immigrants who are facing other civil legal challenges and who maybe are afraid to go to the courthouse when they need to, you know, enforce a child support payment or- - Tell folks why they'd be afraid to go to the courthouse, Jessica.

- I think, right, an increase in enforcement activities certainly leaves folks much more concerned about engaging in public places and unsure about what the result will be, even if what they're going for has nothing to do with immigration.

And we're seeing this for folks who are undocumented, but also folks who are, right, documented, who have green cards, and there's just a lot more fear right now for folks to interact with the legal system.

- Jessica Kitson is director of legal advocacy at the Volunteer Lawyers for Justice Organization.

The website's been up.

Check it out.

Jessica, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks so much for having me, Steve.

Take good care.

- You got it, same to you.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Congress Hall.

PSEG Foundation.

NJM Insurance Group.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

South Jersey Industries.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

And by Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.

Promotional support provided by ROI-NJ.

And by NJ.Com.

- (Narrator) Public service.

It's what we do, at the PSEG Foundation Through volunteer hours, partnerships and our other contributions.

We're committed to empowering communities.

We work hand in hand with you, our neighbors, to educate young people, support research, environmental sustainability and equitable opportunities, provide training and other services all over New Jersey and Long Island.

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That's what drives us.

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