We are a nonprofit collective of legal workers
who provide free legal services to Oregonians. We aim to tear down legal barriers that stop our community from enjoying each members’ full participation; to find legal, educational, and systemic solutions to racial, social, and economic injustice; and to work toward dismantling oppressive legal systems.
Our Model
The CLEAR Clinic provides primarily limited-scope legal assistance for broad scale, community-oriented access to justice. Our legal system operates under the false assumption that people should be able to navigate many complex, obstacle-ridden legal processes on their own. The CLEAR Clinic helps people navigate these systems and processes on a limited-scope basis, to allow us to assist as many people as possible in finding access to justice.
This model has the added benefit of empowering individuals to be more involved in their own advocacy. It also allows us to reframe access to justice as a solution that feels just for the impacted community member, as opposed to seeking a specific remedy under the law.
Low- and moderate-income people find barriers to justice at every turn. The legal system is a maze that can be almost impossible to navigate without help. We provide innovative, broad-scale efforts to expand access to justice for all Oregonians.
What We Do
We have three legal programs: record relief & self-determination, housing justice, and immigration justice.
Record Relief & Self-determination::
Our record relief and self-determination program provides two to three drop-in legal clinics per week all over the Portland metro (tri-county) area, including at recovery centers, community-based organizations, and our office. We also provide legal clinics for people in Oregon prisons, at all nine federally-recognized tribal nations in the state, and at other locations around Oregon. At these drop-in clinics we offer criminal record expungements, court fines and fee waiver assistance, eviction expungements, legal name and gender-marker changes, enrollment in our immigration programs, and more.
Check our our calendar of drop-in legal clinics here at the “drop-in clinics” tab above.
This program also provides pro se and limited scope assistance with SB 819 applications for non-expungeable felony relief; legal services and resources to incarcerated Oregonians through a partnership with ACLU of Oregon; habeas corpus legal services to people in prison in Oregon; and open access legal name and gender-marker changes.
Housing Justice:
Our housing justice program provides eviction defense legal services to Portland residents through funding provided by the Portland Housing Bureau. To access these services you must either have a termination notice from your landlord or be in eviction proceedings, be low-income, and reside in Portland.
In addition, we have a tenant advocacy program, which provides brief advice and limited scope legal services to tenants throughout Oregon on issues ranging from security deposit returns, habitability issues, reasonable accommodations, and more. This program includes a tenant advocacy hotline, available on Tuesdays and Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm.
Tenant Advocacy Hotline: 503-433-6431 (available T & Th 9 am to 5 pm)
Immigration Justice:
Our immigraiton justice program provides both limited-scope and full-scope deportation defense legal services through the Equity Corps of Oregon (ECO) program, DACA renewals, work permit applications and renewals, and other immigrant worker justice legal services through a collaboration with the Northwest Workers’ Justice Program.
Our immigraiton team also offers regular Know Your Rights Trainings on dealing with ICE and other immigration issues, enrollment into the ECO program and community resource navigation.
We pride ourselves on having deep and collaborative connections with community-based organizations and community members who share our vision.
Our Ideals
Purpose & Vision::
The purpose of the CLEAR Clinic is to tear down the legal barriers that keep our community from enjoying the benefit of each members’ full participation. We acknowledge our state and nation’s devastating history of white supremacy both within and outside the legal system; our vision is to clear our community members’ legal obstacles that arise from oppressive systems, and to work toward ending those systems entirely.
Mission:
The CLEAR Clinic creates and fosters a community that values all of its members and allows each person to shine their brightest, without being held back by legal issues. We help our community clear their records, clear up their housing and immigration issues, and clear their paths forward through free legal services and advocacy.
Values:
Every human being has inherent value. We strive to treat everyone who comes through our doors with dignity and respect, and provide legal services that help promote the value of each person.
Legal advocacy is critical for social and racial justice. We focus on reducing barriers to success and well-being and addressing historical injustice by providing access to essential legal services.
Charging clients for legal services is an inherent barrier to accessing justice. Eliminating fees for our work increases equity and accessibility of legal services that support our community’s basic needs.
Community resilience is possible through collaboration. We believe that as legal workers, we have a responsibility to reduce the legal system’s negative impacts on our community. We carry this responsibility through, among other things, the hands-on legal work we do in the Clinic and our community partnerships that provide wraparound support and community care.
Responding to harm or violations of the law does not require us to rely on incarceration and punishment. We work towards a society where immigration is not criminalized, and our response to harm or legal violations is repair not punishment.
Our Services
Court Record Relief
We provide free criminal record expungement services, free SB 819 applications, and free motions to waive court fines and fees. To find out your expungement eligibility, fill out our intake form below.
Immigration Justice
The CLEAR Clinic provides free deportation legal defense, free DACA renewal legal assistance, and free legal services to immigrant workers facing workplace mistreatment.
Name & Gender-Marker Changes
The CLEAR Clinic provides free, open access legal services for legal name and gender-marker changes, as well as legal advice and resources for people navigating the legal name ad gender-marker change process.
Housing Justice
The CLEAR Clinic provides free eviction expungement, eviction legal defense, and tenant advocacy legal services.
Calendar
This is a calendar of our drop-in clinics. You do not need to have an appointment during these clinics.
Services provided:
Criminal Record Expungement
Eviction Expungement
Name and Gender Marker Changes
Immigration referrals