Public Justice Center

The PJC is a civil legal aid office that provides advice and representation to low-income clients before legislatures and government agencies, and collaborates with community and advocacy organizations. The PJC chooses projects and cases that will make a significant impact on systems, laws, and policies. Find out more at www.publicjustice.org

Current projects include:

- Human Right to Housing Project: We defend renters facing eviction, demand repair of unsafe housing conditions, and represent renters seeking systemic relief from predatory landlord practices. We advocate to change the law regarding evictions and to demand the development of equitable and sustainable affordable housing.

- Workplace Justice Project: We represent workers in court, enabling them to stand up to wage theft, recover unpaid wages, and reform their employers' payment practices. We advocate to strengthen laws that project workers' rights.

- Education Stability Project: We advance racial equity in public education by combatting the overuse of exclusionary school discipline practices, like suspension and expulsion, that disproportionately target Black and brown children and push students out of school. We also seek to eliminate barriers to school enrollment and success confronting homeless children and children in foster care.

- Access to Health and Public Benefits Project: We advocate to protect and expand eligibility for healthcare coverage and access to appropriate, affordable, effective, and culturally competent healthcare. We seek to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and access to benefits.

- National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel: We lead a national coalition that seeks to establish the right to an attorney for low-income people in civil cases when basic needs are at stake, such as housing, child custody, or physical safety.

- Prisoners' Rights Project: We aim to make pretrial detention rare, brief, and humane. We also advocate to ensure quality healthcare and sanitary conditions in pretrial detention in Baltimore City.

- Appellate Advocacy Project: We advocate in appellate courts to influence the development of civil rights and poverty law. This advocacy offers the potential to reform law that affects many thousands of people. Find out more at www.publicjustice.org