Charlie is 45 years old and disabled. He struggles to make ends meet, and finally found a job delivering newspapers. After he started work, the employer kept lowering the promised rate of pay, and within two weeks he could see the pay wouldn’t even cover his gas money. He quit and asked the employer for his paycheck-—by his calculation, just $175. The employer refused to pay at all and made threats when Charlie protested. Charlie really needed that $175, so he called legal aid. Legal aid discovered that the employer had committed multiple violations of wage and hour laws, and that Charlie was owed far more than $175. A legal aid lawyer got a judgment that fairly compensated Charlie for his work. Afterwards, Charlie said “I feel like I got justice. I wouldn’t have known where to start. I needed help and [legal aid] helped.”
