Tight Budgets & Tough Choices:
Poverty, Decisions, and Why Legal Aid Matters

Presented by LAF (formerly the Legal Assistance Foundation), Tight Budgets & Tough Choices is a 90 minute on your feet interactive experience designed to place participants in decision-making situations that are the everyday reality for people living in poverty.  Participants will learn how solving a civil legal problem can have a transformative impact on a client’s life – and the dire consequences that can arise when civil legal aid is not available– as well as the breadth of legal solutions that LAF can provide.

Participants assume the role of a head of household who is working and living in poverty. (Through a series of events that happen in her life, participants will choose what to do in response, using the “money” and “goodwill” given to them at the start of the exercise.)  The goal is to keep the family housed, with their basic needs met for 9 months while keeping the children on track, in school, and safe from harm.

This 90-minute training is approved for up to 1.5 hours of Illinois MCLE ethics credit.  Learn more about LAF, with podcasts and videos, at www.lafchicago.org