Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services

SMRLS is the oldest legal aid program in the state having originally been established in 1909 as the free Legal Aid Bureau of Associated Charities of St. Paul. It has long been regarded as a model program. It is well known for its ability to effectively collaborate with a wide variety of government institutions, community-based organizations, and the private bar. SMRLS provides free legal representation and advice to low-income residents of 33 counties in Southern Minnesota and to migrant farmworkers throughout Minnesota and North Dakota. SMRLS has offices in St. Paul, Mankato, Winona, Albert Lea, Worthington, Prior Lake, Rochester and Fargo, North Dakota. It also has outreach offices at the American Indian/Eastside Office in St. Paul at the United Cambodian Association. It has 57 staff attorneys, 57 other staff, and approximately 500 active volunteer attorneys to serve an estimated 260,000 low-income persons in its service area who experience an estimated 100,000 legal problems each year. Because of limited resources, SMRLS has an obligation to handle only significant, meritorious cases. SMRLS concentrates its program effort and time in those areas of greatest urgency for low-income persons, identified through a comprehensive priority setting process. Accordingly, SMRLS has adopted a critical legal needs case acceptance policy which emphasizes those legal problems which require special expertise or knowledge, involve basic survival needs and which are capable of legal solution. Source: www.smrls.org