Cy Pres Awards
Direct Residual Funds to Justice
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) is an experienced, court-recognized cy pres recipient. Designating AJSOCAL to receive your judgments via cy pres helps ensure that unclaimed class action funds reach communities most affected by the harms your litigation addressed.
AJSOCAL is a 501(c)(3) legal services organization that provides immigration, housing, and domestic violence representation, litigates impact cases, and conducts policy advocacy, and demographic research on behalf of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities throughout Southern California. AJSOCAL performs more than 15,000 legal intakes annually, and cy pres awards allow us to increase the number of people we assist, a community made up of low-income individuals, immigrants, consumers, and people targeted by discriminatory and predatory practices.
Legal Authority
Under the cy pres doctrine, Courts may direct unallocated, unclaimed, or undeliverable funds from class action settlements or judgments to nonprofit organizations whose work advances the interests of the class.
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 384(b): The trial court shall direct residual funds to nonprofit organizations providing civil legal services to the indigent, or to nonprofit organizations supporting projects that will benefit the class or similarly situated persons.
California’s Legislature has specifically indicated that nonprofit organizations providing civil legal services to the indigent are appropriate recipients of cy pres awards. AJSOCAL’s direct legal services and impact litigation program create a strong nexus to the subject matter of many class actions.
Areas of Nexus
AJSOCAL’s direct services, impact litigation, and advocacy address harms substantially similar to those at issue in many class actions, including:
- Immigration remedies and defenses, removal defense (detained and non-detained), habeaus corpus representation, and broad scale affirmative immigration work.
- Consumer protection for linguistically isolated and immigrant communities
- Civil rights and anti-discrimination, including § 1983 actions and Bane Act enforcement
- Government transparency and accountability through CPRA and FOIA enforcement
- Housing rights and protections for low-income tenants
- Elder abuse and financial exploitation targeting immigrant community members
- Challenges to unlawful federal agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act
- Voting rights and election protection for AAPI communities
Representative Areas of Work
| Housing Preservation | Free legal assistance on housing-related issues, with a focus on people who are immigrants or have limited proficiency in English. |
| Anti-Asian Discrimination | Victim assistance, connections to non-legal services, and confidential telephone helplines in five Asian languages plus English for individuals facing hate or discrimination. |
| Immigration and Citizenship | Free legal services for a vast array of service needs for our immigration communities which include: domestic violence survivors (VAWA), trafficking survivors (T-Visas), victims of crime (U-Visas), asylum, adjustment of status, removal defense, including representation in immigration court, family-based immigration relief, and free citizenship assistance in Los Angeles and Orange Counties and throughout Southern California. |
| Language Access and Impact Litigation | Litigation and public advocacy to challenge discriminatory barriers and strengthen language access to government services and public systems. |
| Voting Rights | Voting rights tools and resources in multiple languages, along with voter access and language support for AAPI communities in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. |
| Orange County Regional Services | Free legal services and outreach focused on immigration and citizenship, housing rights, domestic violence representation, voter protection, and lawsuits involving anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination claims. |
| Domestic Violence and Elder Abuse | Free legal services to domestic violence, elder abuse, and civil harassment survivors with strong focus on indigent and limited English-speaking members of the Los Angeles and Orange County AAPI communities in their family law matters with trauma informed and culturally sensitive care. |
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Consumer Protection, Employment and Labor Law |
Free legal assistance to low income, seniors, individuals with disabilities and those with Limited English Proficiency. We provide direst services and education with individual consumer fraud. We represent workers with wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and other discriminatory practices. |
How to Designate AJSOCAL
- Contact us. Reach out to our Impact Litigation Unit at litigation@ajsocal.org with a brief description of the case and the approximate amount of residual funds.
- We provide supporting materials. We will furnish a declaration, organizational description, and any subject-specific documentation the court requires to establish AJSOCAL’s appropriateness as a cy pres recipient.
- Funds are put to work. Cy pres awards directly support AJSOCAL’s legal services and impact litigation on behalf of low-income AAPI community members throughout Southern California.
Contact the Impact Litigation Unit
| Sean F. Bigley, Director of Litigation Email: litigation@ajsocal.org Phone: (213) 977-7500 |
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California 1145 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90017 |
Upon request, we can provide detailed subject-specific information and declarations summarizing AJSOCAL’s appropriateness as a cy pres recipient to any counsel or court.
