Southern Legal Counsel expands its staff and scope of services with additional funding

January 30, 2025 - Southern Legal Counsel is expanding its legal services and adding two attorneys, having received over $1.3 million in grants from Funding Florida Legal Aid, formerly known as The Florida Bar Foundation.

While this represents more than twice the funding SLC has received from FFLA in the past, the grants come with new restrictions that will require SLC to find other sources of funding for some of the work it has traditionally done.

For example, Interest on Trust Accounts or IOTA funding can no longer be used to support a facial challenge to the constitutionality of an existing law or statute, nor can it be used “for systematic advocacy for policy reform, legal reform, or civil rights initiatives unrelated to the representation of a specific low-income client,” according to new FFLA standards.

FFLA is also prioritizing certain types of legal services in its grantmaking. Among those are housing and consumer protection, areas into which SLC will be expanding.

“Increased funding is an exciting opportunity which will enable SLC to meet the legal needs of many low-income Floridians. We will continue our current work on behalf of children with disabilities in special education matters and adults with disabilities to obtain needed home and community-based services,” said SLC Executive Director Jodi Siegel. “We also will continue representing individuals who are experiencing homelessness and others who need assistance in obtaining public benefits and expand into other legal areas. And while we will continue to challenge local government ordinances that criminalize homelessness and advocate for transgender individuals, we will need to secure other sources of funding to do much of the work we have been doing in these areas.”

SLC has hired a new attorney, J. Maggio, to combat housing discrimination and address rent and security deposit disputes and represent persons with disabilities, while SLC attorney Dan Marshall will spearhead SLC’s consumer fraud work. In addition, SLC will be hiring another attorney to support its expanded scope of services.

Using private funding and grants from other sources, SLC’s Transgender Rights Initiative will continue to protect gender-affirming health care and challenge discriminatory laws and policies. This work is now supported by the addition of a Skadden Fellow, who will provide much-needed support to Simone Chriss, the director of SLC’s Transgender Rights Initiative.

Anthony Javier Black, a third-year student at Northeastern University School of Law, will address health-harming unmet legal needs among transgender adult patients by expanding an existing medical-legal partnership with UF Health. After graduating this spring, Black will continue this work through the Skadden Fellowship for two years.

“Our mission has not changed, nor will we abandon the important work we have been doing since 1977 to hold government accountable,” Siegel said. “We will just have to work harder to secure grants and donations to support some of that work, an effort that is well underway. Meanwhile, we can do even more good for more clients thanks to this significant increase in our FFLA grant funding.”