Law In Action has a limited number of bumper stickers (like the one shown above) for those who would like to display the stickers on their vehicles. If you are interested, please contact our office at 232-1330.

Welcome to Law In Action

Law In Action (LIA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Greenville, SC.  LIA currently offers these projects:

Student Defense: An expulsion hearing can be a life-altering event. In South Carolina, low-income parents whose children face expulsion from public school are not provided free lawyers to represent them at these important hearings. Over 400 students in Greenville County are recommended for expulsion annually. The reasons used to justify expulsion vary and the consequences are often permanent. Law In Action believes that these children need legal help to evaluate their individual cases and represent their interests.  Law In Action has recruited local lawyers who will represent low-income parents and their children free of charge in expulsion hearings. You can call Legal Services at 679-3254 (in Greenville) to see if you or someone you know qualifies for this program.

Jail Project: Not every poor person who is arrested is entitled to a free lawyer. Persons charged with minor offenses often have nobody in the system looking out for them.  As a result, someone can sit in the jail for days or weeks (even if they are not guilty of the crime charged), even longer than the maximum sentence they face if they are guilty of the charge, without knowing what to do about gaining release. The Jail Project, with funding from private donors, the South Carolina Bar Foundation and the Community Foundation of Greenville (Hollingsworth Funds, Inc.), assists non-violent inmates to obtain release on bond pending trial in appropriate cases. Investigators notify inmates of their legal rights including the right to counsel and the right to medical care.  The Greenville County Detention Center suffers from overcrowding which can lead to violence and other problems.  Jail Project volunteers and college student investigators conduct interviews at the detention center and then develop action plans for each case. Additionally, the Jail project has launched the Time to Read initiative, a book drive for the Greenville County Detention Center aimed at significantly expanding the jail library’s current collection. As of this writing, Time To Read has collected and delivered over 1700 paperbacks to the detention center.

Workshops: The purpose of this project is to provide information on legal topics to non-lawyers.  The topics include: job rights, civil and constitutional rights, and student rights.  Groups of 30 or more can request a workshop on the offered legal topics by contacting Law In Action.

Mock Trials: LIA offers interested classroom teachers and other groups a real life trial experience for high school age students.  Students play the roles of prosecutors and defense in cases prepared by LIA volunteers.  LIA also offers an analysis and discussion of the trial in To Kill A Mockingbird. Contact Law In Action for more information.  A partial list of cases available through LIA can be found on the Mock Trials page.

Court Investigators: LIA has recruited college students to assist lawyers handling court appointed criminal cases.  The LIA court investigators work in teams of two and investigate juvenile and adult criminal cases assigned to them by lawyers representing indigent criminal defendants. These are real cases with real consequences.