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In 2025, the Telesca Center for Justice helped provide legal services to over 50,000 Rochester residents. Now, with a new $90,000 grant from the state, the center will be able to maintain their shared operations and continue making legal representation accessible.
The center, founded in 2005, is a collaborative model that combines four legal agencies—Empire Justice Center, JustCause, the Legal Aid Society of Rochester, and Legal Assistance of Western NY—to bring civil legal services to underserved and low-income residents of Rochester. The partners aim to remove barriers to legal services and provide them to all community members.
In 2026, the Telesca Center has handled more than 20,000 civil legal cases so far with the help of 177 lawyers, 347 pro bono attorneys, 114 pro bono law students and 131 paralegals. It says 92% of low- and moderate-income people face legal issues. Roughly 28% of city residents live in poverty.
Telesca Center executive director Mary Loewenguth says the center often takes on cases involving immigration rights, housing needs, and family and custody matters. It also frequently handles name changes, often for new citizens or members of the LGBTQ+ community seeking to legally change their name.
The center’s 2026 Impact Report states that nearly half of its cases (47%) were family matters such as child custody, guardianship or domestic violence. Housing clients, typically receiving support with eviction or foreclosure, accounted for 27% of its cases.
Now, the center is “getting ready to face a Medicaid crisis in January,” when the federal government will add work requirements, Loewenguth says. She is also working to raise unrestricted funds for various programs at the center.
The new state funding is a legislative grant that is not restricted to a particular use, says Carla Palumbo, CEO of the Legal Aid Society, but will be used to support shared services across the center. Assemblymembers Harry Bronson and Jen Lunsford announced the funding in July.
While the center itself does not have an annual budget—each legal agency housed there operates with its own budget and staffing—it does rely on targeted state grants such as this one and donations to the Telesca Fund for Justice (a joint fundraising effort aiming to raise $1 million annually). The center also has various business partners and sponsors.
One of the center’s shared services is a single intake desk.
Rather than being directed to different offices or staff members, Loewenguth says, a visitor to the center “goes right to the intake area, they get added to the system in terms of what their needs are, and then we have lawyers throughout the building who will come down, or paralegals, and do a further evaluation and determine what it is they need.”
Palumbo says the funding will also support shared communication efforts to increase community awareness of civil legal services.
The connection to community is something Loewenguth says is special about the Telesca Center.
“One of the things I am so proud of is our lawyers, our legal service agencies, are out there advocating in the community,” Loewenguth says. “They’re attending community meetings and they’re speaking at fairs and they’re growing awareness.”
Alefiya Presswala is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort.
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