Increasing Effective Legal Representation of Native American Victims of Felony and Violent Crimes

This cooperative agreement will support the establishment and enhancement of new and existing victim legal clinics that will provide direct representation to victims of crime in the enforcement of their rights in criminal cases in federal, state, and tribal jurisdictions. For that purpose, the grantee will provide subgrants to seven existing legal clinics to enhance and expand current efforts, as well as provide to up to three additional subgrants to organizations to start such clinic efforts. The clinics will provide victims with pro bono legal counsel and support services. The grantee will provide the clinics with intensive technical assistance and programmatic, administrative, and financial oversight. The grantee also will undertake efforts to educate and train criminal justice professionals, law students, attorneys, and others on victims' rights and to engage law students to expose them to and train them in the area of crime victims' rights law. ca/ncf