Project Mission Statement

The LGBT Legal Resource Center seeks to:

• Educate members of the LGBT community about their legal rights and empower them with information.

• Provide an easily accessible, one-stop home for many of the LGBT community’s legal resources.

• Simplify the burdens facing members of the LGBT community of modest means who are navigating legal issues without the benefit of an attorney.

• Encourage the creation of new resources to meet the needs of the LGBT community across all issue areas.

• Promote the work of our community’s organizations along with the work of our allied organizations.

About the Project

The LGBT Legal Resource Center seeks to create a home for many of the LGBT community’s publicly available legal resources (with a special emphasis on New York), which are currently spread out across an array of organizational sites.

This project grew directly out of the existing work of the LeGaL Foundation. We know first-hand from the hundreds of questions posed to us by visitors to our walk-in clinics and from the many general inquires we receive, that a need exists for a one-stop home for members of the LGBT community of modest means who are navigating legal issues.

We wanted a way to better serve those community members who reach out to us while building a resource that may, in turn, be of use to community organizations fielding similar inquiries and advancing similar goals.

We have spent many hours gathering the project’s resources from organizations devoted specifically to the LGBT community as well as from others with a more general but no less important mission. The latter organizations may not be as readily familiar to members of our community but often provide essential resources and assistance. Each time we link to a resource we also link to the authoring organization. In this way, we hope the project will promote the work of the wonderful organizations whose resources we draw upon.

Though the initiative is currently in its “beta” stage, it already houses links to a variety of legal self-help guides, fact sheets and publications aimed at the LGBT community specifically or containing legal information that we believe will be helpful to members of the LGBT community.

Going forward, we are committed to keeping the project up-to-date as a resource that keeps pace with the ever-changing legal developments affecting the LGBT community.

This project is necessarily time and labor intensive – please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support the project going forward by using the Donate button below or by clicking here for a printable pledge form.

We welcome and need your feedback, suggestions and additional resources. Please e-mail us at resourcecenter@le-gal.org.

Thank you!

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use this information instead of retaining an attorney?

The information presented does not constitute legal advice. We link to the information contained within the project as a service to the community. While we try to link to quality information, we make no claims, promises, warranties or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information presented.

Nothing provided on the site, should be construed as, or should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel. If you wish to retain an attorney, please contact our Attorney Referral Service by e-mailing us at referral@le-gal.org or by calling 212-459-4873.

Why is some of the information specific to New York State?

As a bar association and foundation in the Greater New York area most of our members and the community members we serve reside or work in the New York City metropolitan area.  As a result, we frequently point individuals in the direction of New York-specific resources to best address their needs.

However, many of the project’s resources provide information that will be of relevance to visitors regardless of location.

We intend to reach out to our partner LGBT bar associations in other cities across the country to encourage them to participate in the project and add resources that may be appropriate for visitors from their areas.

Why were these subject areas chosen?  Where can we get more help?

We know there are subject areas missing from the project.

At the initial stage, we focused on areas of law in which there already exists a variety of LGBT-specific resources in addition to more general resources.  We know there are far more areas of law for which assistance may be needed and we hope to add additional resources in the days ahead. 

We strongly recommend that those visitors who have issues not addressed by the LGBT Legal Resource Center, and those seeking resources beyond New York, to also visit LawHelp.org, which has  a variety of online resources that may be helpful in additional issue areas and which is a wonderful resource overall. 

We also recommend visiting our Helpful Organizations page and considering whether the walk-in clinics and other services of LeGaL may be of assistance.

How do you decide which resources to feature?

At the initial stage of this project, we have featured those resources that we – our staff, our clinic volunteers and others – have found most useful when advising those we assist. We have devoted significant staff time to scouring the web for additional resources we think may be helpful to the LGBT community.

At the second stage of this project, we will be reaching out to community organizations and others to invite them to submit additional resources. We are committed to growing this project and keeping it up-to-date with new legal developments.

Not every useful resource can be featured. But we will do our best to provide a comprehensive site. Please help by letting us know of any resources that belong here by e-mailing us at resourcecenter@le-gal.org.

Why are some of these resources not LGBT-specific?

In some instances, the resources presented contain information that are not specific to the LGBT community. These are resources that we believe are nonetheless useful to members of the LGBT community facing the particular legal issue featured.

We encourage members of the community to explore additional resources that may be available through LawHelp.org, a site we have long linked to from our homepage.

Why are some of your resources not limited to “legal” information?

In many instances, individuals who have a “legal” issue often are in need of additional resources or have needs that can be best addressed by non-legal resources.   Accordingly, we will occasionally feature such resources on our project; we will not, however, be able to feature all such resources.

If I am an attorney or member of an organization that wants to create or share resources for the site, what can I do?

We welcome the submission of additional resources or the creation of new ones for inclusion on the site.  Please reach out to us at resourcecenter@le-gal.org.

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