Berkshire County — Seventeen years ago, Connecticut native Eve Schatz founded the 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit Berkshire Center for Justice Inc. to help residents in Berkshire County who cannot afford to pay for legal services.
“When you cannot afford to pay for your attorney or get legal advice, it’s like being in a boat in the middle of the ocean,” Schatz told The Berkshire Edge. “With the increase of lower-income residents over the years in Berkshire County, the demand has become great for pro bono legal services, which in itself puts a lot of pressure on the existing legal system.”
Schatz grew up in West Hartford, Conn., and earned her Juris Doctorate in 2007 from the Western New England University School of Law in Springfield. While she was a student there, she founded the Free Legal Clinic of South Berkshire County, a pilot program that eventually morphed into the Berkshire Center for Justice.
Over the years, Schatz has committed herself to other advocacy work, including founding the Great Barrington Neighborhood Environmental Safety group in 1998 and serving on the state’s Commission on the Status of Women from 2004 to 2008. “Before I was in law school, I was a transition program provider at Housatonic Valley High School in Falls Village, Conn.,” Schatz said. “At the school, I worked with students with disabilities. One of the students had an elderly father who was dying. His father had full custody of the student and there was a risk that the father would pass away while the child was still in high school, and that child would not be adequately provided for. I spoke with my supervisor at the time and they approved of me contacting an attorney to get involved with the child’s family so he could be protected by making sure the father’s legal paperwork was all in order.”
Schatz said that the student’s father died before he graduated high school. “But because the father had all of his legal paperwork in order, the student was provided for and protected,” Schatz said. “That incident was a real lesson for me in why affordable legal services are needed. When I look around Berkshire County, there are a lot of very bright, educated, creative, and hardworking people. But because of the microeconomy here, many of them have a difficult time making ends meet and many of them cannot afford to pay for a lawyer.”
Schatz said the case at the high school led her to create the Free Legal Clinic of South Berkshire County, which was a program of free legal clinics for residents who could not afford a lawyer. “I wanted people to have access to a pro bono lawyer when it comes to civil matters, and to combine that with social and community organization referrals,” Schatz said. “It made sense to me because there are residents out there who may have other needs that can be met that could improve the lifestyle of their entire family. The first legal clinic I held was at the Berkshire South Regional Community Center, and many people showed up to it. That was the beginning of the Berkshire Center for Justice.”
Schatz said that, 17 years on, due to the continuing complexities of the legal system, Berkshire Center for Justice’s services are needed more than ever. “There are so many questions surrounding laws and what people’s legal rights are,” Schatz said. “There are always questions about the process people have to go through to enforce those legal rights. Just because you have those legal rights doesn’t mean it all automatically falls into your lap. You have to have ways to have those rights to be enforced, and that’s part of the role of the court system. To do that, a case has to be brought into court, and that involves specific paperwork and understanding civil procedure rules. Many people are not familiar with and do not understand either of those. If they try to represent themselves because they can’t afford to pay a lawyer, they can inadvertently give up their rights because they filled out their paperwork wrong or because of their unfamiliarity with those procedural rules.”
Schatz said that the situation can turn dire in certain legal cases when one side represents themselves and the other side has an attorney representing them. “In cases like that, it becomes an imbalance of advocacy, because people don’t know what their proper legal defenses are,” Schatz said. “People representing themselves can often think they know their rights and that they have a story to tell, but they don’t know how to present a proper defense. The law is complicated, and there are numerous different courts that each have different procedures.”
The Berkshire Center for Justice currently offers a free legal clinic to those in need every Wednesday, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the Guthrie Center at 2 Van Deusenville Road, Great Barrington. The clinic has been operating at the Guthrie Center for years during its weekly free community lunches.
“What have I gotten out of offering free legal services to those in need? I’m just gracious and grateful that we have been here to help numerous residents get the legal services that they need,” Schatz said. “To offer help on a pro bono basis is a true blessing. We really have made a difference in people’s lives, and our clients have all let us know that. It has been very gratifying to know that we’ve been able to redefine in itself what a law office does.”
For more information about the Berkshire Center for Justice, call (413) 854-1955 or email flcberkshire@gmail.com.
