Legal Services for Seniors

Mission

The Big Idea

Every year, more than 2,200 Monterey County seniors are victims of physical, financial, and emotional abuse.

Legal Services for Seniors helps these seniors untangle their legal problems, but we want to prevent the abuse from happening at all.

Our Big Idea is to prevent elder abuse by teaching seniors to recognize and avoid typical scams, landlord/tenant disputes, consumer scams and elder financial/physical abuse.

Our prevention-based, senior-focused workshops for community members and professionals will be offered throughout Monterey County, including the far reaches of rural South Monterey County.

With Legal Services for Seniors’ direct, confidential legal representation and new information about their legal rights, our seniors will be empowered to stand up for themselves so they can live their lives independently and with dignity.

Strict legal confidentiality prohibits us from sharing testimonials. What follows is a real-life example of a client helped by LSS: When her landlord filed an $8,000 retaliatory lawsuit against our 70-year-old senior she came to us. Our client had asked her landlord to take care of an unhealthy black mold growing in her home. The landlord did nothing. Our client’s health began deteriorating, so she asked the landlord, again, to make repairs. Instead of fixing the problem, the landlord sued her to force her to move out, stating he was going to keep her entire security deposit and sue her for an additional $8,000.00. Our attorney called the landlord. When he found out this senior had an attorney on her side, he changed his story. Within days, he had withdrawn his lawsuit, promised to not pursue further action against our client and, within days began repairs.

- Anonymous