Putting The Law In Their Hands!
In 1972, the CWLU began to “sponsor a Legal Clinic that provided legal services and advice for women.” The Clinic workers consisted of “women lawyers, women law students, and other women interested in helping, have tried to relate to the women who come in as women first, not clients.” “Most of the cases concerned women’s personal lives: divorce, child support, or wife beating. There also were some criminal cases and many creditor problems. The Legal Clinic was a legal advice operation. Cases were referred to lawyers rather than handled directly through the Clinic. All women who needed lawyers were referred to women lawyers throughout the city who take cases for reasonable rates and in some cases, for free.” This clinic was established to ensure that women were provided with legal care by people who understood them and served well as their legal assistants rather then by lawyers “who did nothing about their cases”.