About

The aim of CLARO Buffalo is to educate unrepresented debtors regarding their rights as consumers and to help them through the legal process. CLARO Buffalo aims to maximize legal resources to those in need by providing limited scope legal advice to unrepresented litigants, as part of the larger pro se movement.

Our weekly CLARO Buffalo clinics offer limited advice and counsel sessions, structured as a

free walk-in clinic!

Each session is staffed with a WNYLC paralegal, administering the session, WNYLC attorney(s) and volunteer attorneys. During the fall and spring, student attorneys, under a New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division practice order, and who are enrolled in the Consumer and Financial Advocacy Clinic at SUNY Buffalo Law School, help staff the CLARO project.

During the CLARO sessions attorneys meet with visitors and explain the context of debt collection action, the implications of such actions on the litigant's credit, as well as the ramifications of a judgment. Further, the attorneys go over the procedural posture and substantive issues in the case and assist the litigant with on-site preparation of documents, such as Answers, responses to Demands for Discovery, Interrogatories and Notices to Admit, as well as help drafting or defending Motions for Summary Judgment, and so on.

CLARO Buffalo functions under the auspices of the Western New York Law Center (WNYLC), BFNC HOPE Center, and volunteer attorneys, with the support of the 8th Judicial District Courts and sponsorship of The John R. Oishei Foundation.