(formerly Judicare) SeniorLAW Center

SeniorLAW Center protects the legal rights and interests of Philadelphia’s elderly, providing free legal services, community legal education, professional training, advice, information and referral services, and advocacy.

Through the efforts of its legal staff and volunteers from Philadelphia’s legal community, SeniorLAW Center serves thousands of elders each year, including victims of elder abuse and financial exploitation, elders facing housing crises and homelessness, and grandparents raising grandchildren. 

SeniorLAW Center (formerly Senior Citizen Judicare Project) is an independent 501(c)(3) agency founded in 1978 by members of the Philadelphia Bar Association to protect the legal rights and interests of Philadelphia's needy, elderly residents.

Philadelphia has the largest percentage of senior citizens among this country's 10 largest cities.  Philadelphia’s senior citizens experience a higher poverty rate than their peers in other parts of Pennsylvania and the nation.  Almost one-fourth of Philadelphia’s elders are poor or economically vulnerable.  Most are women.  Many are raising young children, whose birth parents are deceased, incarcerated, ill, or substance addicts.  

Since its founding in 1978, SeniorLAW Center has provided free legal representation for over 32,000 seniors, focusing on the most vital and recurring legal problems facing our elders:  housing, elder abuse, financial exploitation, consumer problems, grandparent custody, personal and end-of-life planning needs.  SeniorLAW Center has educated more than 65,000 elders through community education workshops informing seniors of their legal rights and helping avoid future legal crises.  SeniorLAW Center has also assisted over 100,000 seniors through advice, information, and referral services to other agencies.  SeniorLAW Center has both telephone and walk-in intake for clients in our center city offices as well as at community-based legal clinics in West and North Philadelphia.  SeniorLAW Center has also conducted professional training for thousands of professionals who work with the elderly in other fields, to sensitize them to the legal problems facing the elderly so to further expand the scope of our work.  SeniorLAW Center staff also serves on numerous committees, task forces, and coalitions addressing the needs of the elderly, women, and the poor, to provide advocacy and address systemic solutions to the problems facing our clients.  

SeniorLAW Center thanks the many generous foundations, corporate and law firm sponsors, and individual donors who make our work possible!