Centers for Law and Legal Studies

The Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law (CSWPL) seeks an income support system that provides an adequate standard of living for people in the United States. In attempting to achieve this goal it respects individual rights of privacy, independence, self-determination, and fair treatment. It works as a nonprofit legal and policy organization providing assistance to advocates and poor people's organizations on welfare policy issues in Washington, D.C., and in the rest of the United States.

Since 1965 the CSWPL has pursued an aggressive policy of advocacy for poor people. Its work concentrates on public assistance programs that provide cash subsistence benefits to millions of economically disadvantaged people. The center works to facilitate programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children and general assistance programs at the state and local levels, which together provide services to over 15 million adults and children.

A professional staff of seven attorneys and policy analysts contributes to the center's understanding of welfare policy and law. First, welfare recipients and poor people receive direct representation in federal litigation before appropriate administrative and legislative bodies; this includes litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has established basic DUE PROCESS rights for welfare recipients and ended discriminatory practices of welfare agencies. Second, the center seeks nonpartisan policy analysis designed to identify objective welfare policy issues. Third, by means of public education, the center attempts to increase popular understanding—and dispel myths—about public assistance programs. Fourth, the center disseminates legal analyses of developments in welfare law and policy to more than fourteen hundred welfare specialists in every state and to the poverty law journal Clearinghouse Review. Finally, it provides specialized case assistance with training and training materials for local lawyers, paralegals, and other advocates throughout the United States who are engaged in work that coincides with the center's mission. In the 1990s the center focused on welfare reform proposals.

The center receives financial support from foundations, corporations, the Legal Services Corporation, the Interest on Lawyer Account Fund of the State of New York, law firms, church groups, community organizations, and individuals. Under section 501(c)(3) of the INTERNAL REVENUE CODE, the center is a nonprofit corporation with tax exempt status.