The Shriver Center plays a pivotal role in the delivery of legal services to low-income clients by creating, through its comprehensive services, an extraordinary network of legal services and pro bono lawyers, policymakers, and other advocates working on poverty law and policy development. Through the Clearinghouse Review, the online Poverty Law Library, and Advocacy and News sections of the web site, the Shriver Center equips advocates throughout the country with the tools and strategies they need to effectively promote sound policy and law to move people permanently from poverty.As an integral part of the Shriver Center’s programs, eJustice provides technology leadership to the poverty law community through analysis, tutorials, training, research, and tools.

The following article describes the main features of the Shriver Center website. A screencast tutorial on how to use the Shriver Center site to conduct legal research is also available here.

Clearinghouse Review

Published bimonthly, the Clearinghouse Review, is an advocate’s best resource for information on developments in poverty law. Each issue features in-depth, analytical articles, written by experts in their fields, on topics of interest to poor people’s and public interest lawyers.

Users may browse issues by date; issues from 1990 to the present are available online.

Articles are cataloged by substantive area and also sub-indexed according to the Legal Services National Index. There are more than 30 substantive categories for Clearinghouse Review articles as well as case documents within the Poverty Law Library.

Poverty Law Library

The Poverty Law Library is a comprehensive resource for poverty law advocates. It includes a growing collection of over 500,000 case pleadings and briefs, which are available to download free of charge.

Cases are cataloged by substantive area and also sub-indexed according to the Legal Services National Index. The library offers cases in more than 30 substantive categories which include:

• Attorneys & Legal Services
• Bankruptcy
• Civil Procedure & Administrative Law
• Civil Rights
• Consumer
• Criminal
• Disability
• Economic Development
• Education
• Elections
• Employment
• Environmental Justice
• Evidence
• Family Law
• Food Programs
• Government and Governmental Services
• Guardianship & Conservatorship
• Health
• Housing
• Immigration
• Juveniles
• License (Auto & Others)
• Mental Health
• Migrants
• Native Americans
• Prisons
• Public Utilities & Energy
• Rural Issues
• Senior Citizens
• Social Security & SSI
• Taxation
• Torts
• Unemployment Compensation & Unemployment Insurance
• Veterans & Military
• Welfare
• Wills & Estates

The library also provides several Research Guides including, a recently updated Federal Practice Manual for Legal Aid Attorneys, a manual on Disaster Assistance, and a Poverty Law Manual for New Attorneys.

RSS feeds for each case, as well as the main library page, are available at the bottom of the page.

News & Views

The Shriver Center offers several regular newsletters free of charge via email:

• Poverty Action Report is a monthly newsletter reporting on policy developments affecting low-income people and the organizations that represent and serve them.
• Poverty Law News is a weekly web digest that offers links to recent news, reports, and case developments of interest to poor people’s advocates.
• WomanView alerts organizations, advocates, and low-income woman and girls to policy developments, concerns and initiatives related to woman’s issues.
• Community Investment News is a bimonthly update that covers financial education, access to mainstream financial services, asset building, and consumer protection.

Each publication has a link to an RSS feed at the bottom of the page.

Users may subscribe to a wide variety of e-mail lists, e-newsletters, and practice area updates. Registration is required and is free.

Advocacy

The Shriver Center advocates to improve the lives of low-income workers, advance families toward economic security, and preserve communities and create opportunity. Policy papers and other resources on the community investment, women’s law and policy, health, housing, and welfare and work supports are available to website users, as detailed below.

The Shriver Center’s Community Investment Unit advocates policies that expand asset-building opportunities as a means to end poverty. The Community Investment Unit strengthens families and communities by expanding opportunities to build, own and protect personal and financial assets.

Asset Building

• Financial Links for Low-Income People provides a toolkit for increasing and retaining participants in financial education programs, report on the impact of financial education on low-income people, and links to purchase curriculum online
• Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment provides a report on the impact of children’s savings accounts on eliminating poverty, education opportunities, and future aspirations, information on national efforts and national legislation to establish universal children’s savings accounts as well as information on state policy development, and access to a quarterly newsletter
• Information on the Community Reinvestment Act including a report on how to use the CRA to sustain financial education programs

Expanding Ownership

• Information on Universal Children’s Saving Accounts
• Information on Individual Development Accounts

Protecting Consumers

• Information on the Illinois Payday Loan Reform Act
• Information on the proposed Refund Anticipation Loan bill

A complete list of the Community Investment Unit publications is available

The Women’s Law and Policy unit creates and promotes legal and policy solutions to improve the lives of low-income women and girls.

Legal & Policy Advocacy Materials

• Sample Crisis Assistance Letters to assist advocates in securing such benefits for victims of domestic violence
• Information on the proposed Education Reform Bill to Promote School Success

Training Materials

• Information for survivors of domestic violence about the Illinois Crime Victims Compensation Act
• Guide to the Victim’s Economic Security and Safety Act

The Health unit advocates national and state health care policies that ensure quality, affordable health care for all.

Advocacy Materials

• Background materials for Illinois’ Medicaid waiver program
• Report on effective community organizing on healthcare issues
• Case study of Illinois’s path to universal health coverage for children

Shriver Center Litigation

• Report on litigation brought to enhance low-income children’s access to Medicaid-covered health care services
• Presentation on a recent consent decree in Memisovski v. Maram

The Housing unit advocates to preserve low-income housing and protect residents of public and subsidized housing throughout Illinois.

Advocacy Materials

• Illinois’s Comprehensive Housing Plan
• Case study on housing preservation in Chicago
• Information on housing voucher program and funding
• Access to Housing Matters, an e-advocacy website

Shriver Center Litigation

• Jane Addams Senior Caucus v. Moody Bible Institute: Lawsuit challenging landlor’s plan to convert federally subsidized apartment building to corporate and student housing
• Wallace v. Chicago Housing Authority: Lawsuit challenging public housing authority’s plan to displace public housing residents without adequate relocation services

The Welfare and Work Supports unit advocates for increasing access to and strengthening public benefits for individuals not working and ensuring that work is truly a means to self-sufficiency for employed individuals.

Advocacy and Training Materials

• Report on administrative barriers to public benefits
• Comments on 2006 TANF regulations
• Article on state flexibility in TANF programming