Legal Redress

The NAACP Aurora Branch Legal Redress  Committee does not act as your attorney, provide legal advice or pay for an attorney. The Legal Redress Committee does work with you to help identify options you may elect to pursue.

While the Legal Redress Committee cannot offer legal advice, we can be non-attorney advocates in mediation or other processes as appropriate. We can also help you identify attorneys or local, state, or federal agencies that may be able to assist you in addressing your complaint. If you believe that you have experienced a cause for complaint on which the NAACP Aurora Branch may help, you are encouraged to submit a Complaint Form. Please recognize that the NAACP Aurora Branch can only provide limited assistance on some kinds of complaints. However, we are happy to discuss your complaint and try to lead you in the right direction to address your complaint.

Except for unusual circumstances, our Legal Redress Committee can act only after they have received your signed Complaint Form. We are not attorneys. Once an attorney has been retained, the NAACP Aurora Branch’s role will be very limited or not at all. We want to help ensure that you are not taking conflicting steps with those you and your attorney decide to pursue.

It is important to know that the investigation/fact-finding process requires us to hear both sides of a dispute. Educating the community about civil rights and community building is very important to our mission within the NAACP. Therefore, it is our role to facilitate conversation between the two parties and, wherever possible, to mediate/negotiate a resolution that is amenable to both. There are occasions when individual cases of discrimination can uncover systemic discrimination, that is, discrimination throughout an entire business or other entity. In such a case, our local NAACP informs the Regional NAACP office.

Finally, it is extremely important that you understand that Legal Redress is a volunteer committee. This does not imply that we are lawyers or that we have judicial authority. Our Mission is to provide fact-finding, mediation, and to match needs with resources where and whenever possible. NAACP services are also contingent on the availability of funds and volunteers.

 

Please complete and return the following forms:

NAACP Aurora Complaint Forms

Mr. Joseph Whitfield, Chair