From a surprisingly small office located within the Monmouth County Probation Services building on Route 66 in Ocean Township, attorney Valerie Hemhauser helps people seeking legal services through the nonprofit Monmouth County Legal Aid Society (LAS).
Established in 1952, the organization provides pro bono legal work to the indigent and disabled people of Monmouth County. Hemhauser’s role as the part-time executive director is to determine if people fit within the financial guideline criteria and if their case is the type the organization handles. If so, they will be matched with an active member of the Monmouth County Bar Association who will take on their case for free.
Why do you volunteer for the Legal Aid Society?
“It’s my way of giving back. Justice should be equal under the law and so we try to make that happen. Litigation is very expensive and sometimes if you don’t have legal representation you are not going to get the same outcome.”
What kinds of cases does Legal Aid handle, and how many?
“We do mostly divorces, child custody, spousal and child support, foreclosure and tenancy matters. We do civil cases if the case is over $1,000.
Last year the Legal Aid Society interfaced with over 1,600 people from the county and many of those people qualified for free legal services.
We used to have a sister organization, Ocean-Monmouth Legal Services, but they got shut down due to lack of funding four years ago and we absorbed those cases. In addition, South Jersey Legal Services are overwhelmed. There’s a lot of things going on so often we handle some of their overflows. So as a result of all of that we have a lot of people coming here.”
How do you handle the additional cases?
“The court requires all lawyers in the state of New Jersey to handle so many hours of pro bono work a year, and by working under the LAS of Monmouth County, this enables the attorneys to satisfy that requirement.
Why do you fundraise?
“We have a little bit of money coming in, but that doesn’t take care of our overhead, even though we were provided space here at the Monmouth Probation Services. We do many fundraisers like 50/50s at the Bar (Association) dinners and we do a wine event that’s coming up. It’s in a beautiful setting in a vineyard in Colts Neck, called 4JG’s.
We’ve also been fortunate to be the charity recipient of the Family Law Executive Committee, which is a division of the state Bar Association. We used to get state funding, but there have been some shortages in the budget since 2014. We’re hopeful this year the state will reconsider.”
The Monmouth County Legal Aid Society’s Wine Tasting and Reception Fundraiser will be Sept. 28. For details, see monmouthlegalaid.com.
This article was first published in the Aug. 30-Sept. 6, 2018 print edition of The Two River Times.
