Two Los Angeles Legal Aid Groups Sue Business Owner Under State Law Restricting Use of “Legal Aid” by For-Profit Entities, Claiming Potential Clients Are Misled
Legal Services E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Source: Los Angeles Daily News, “State measure draws line on use by for-profit businesses”
Date: January 5, 2011
The Los Angeles Daily News writes: “For most people, the term ‘legal aid’ brings to mind non-profits offering free services to low-income people facing eviction, divorce and other crises.
But a glance at the white pages or a Google search brings up a slew of ’legal aid’ and ’legal services’ businesses that are happy to take your money. Many of them don’t even have lawyers on staff. Now, a lawsuit filed last month by the two largest established legal aid groups in Los Angeles marks the first attempt to enforce a state law that went into effect last January and bans the term ’legal aid’ or ’any confusingly similar name’ by organizations that charge money for such services.The law allows non-profit legal aid groups to sue to enforce the law, and almost immediately after it took effect, lawyers working for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County began identifying local firms they claimed were in violation of the law. They sent more than a dozen cease-and-desist letters to operators from Century City to Downey with names like White House Legal Aid, Vakil’s Legal Aid Center or just plain Legal Aid. Almost everyone contacted agreed to shut down or stop using the name, the organizations said. The single filed lawsuit was prompted when one of the identified business owners, Sovella Gardner, didn’t respond. The lawsuit alleges that Gardner does business using names such as Legal Aid, Legal Aide, Legal Aid a Low Income Service, Father’s Rights Hotline Legal Services and Legal Assistance Hotline, and charges for services that customers may have assumed would be free.”