Legal Action Center (NYC, D.C.)

The Legal Action Center (LAC) uses legal and policy strategies to fight discrimination, build health equity, and restore opportunities for people with arrest and conviction records, substance use disorders, and HIV or AIDS.

LAC seeks to end punitive responses to health conditions like addiction, mental illness, and HIV or AIDS, and to create equitable access to affordable, quality treatment. We envision a society that upholds the civil rights of all individuals, regardless of their history of justice involvement or medical condition. And we aim to dismantle the historic and persistent impact of systemic racism that has fueled mass incarceration and disparate community health systems.

Since our founding in 1973, LAC has utilized a multi-pronged approach to achieving our mission, which includes: direct legal services, impact litigation, policy advocacy, education and training, and coalition-building.

Our free legal services are offered through our New York City office to individuals who have arrest or conviction records, substance use disorders, HIV, or AIDS and face discrimination in health care, employment, housing, education, and more. Our impact litigation establishes important precedents to defend the civil rights of our constituents on a broader scale. Similarly, our policy advocacy at the national, state and local levels helps to protect access to health care, opportunity, and justice for all.

And all our work is interconnected - our work with individuals informs our advocacy priorities, while our movement with partners and policy-makers helps to elevate the services and resources we are able to provide.