Center for Legal Justice Inc
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 461902225
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2014–2022
- Forms available
- Form 990 2019, Form 990-EZ 2022
- Location
- Elkhart, IN, USA
- Phone
- 5743332037
- Rating
- 87
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Legal Services
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $159,409
- Expenses
- $144,400
- Assets
- $55,192
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2022. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
5 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Jessica Merino (President & Boa)
People named in this filing
- Jessica Merino (President & Boa)
- Luis Cintron (Board Member)
- Heidi Cintron (Board Member)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2022. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Provide direct legal services on a sliding scale with a focus on the low income community of Northwest Indiana. These services include: Family Law, Immigration Law and Criminal Law.Family-based immigration, applications for lawful permanent residence, naturalization/citzenship, temporary protected status, legal protections for victims of violence, removal defense for adults and children, Board of immigration appeals, post deportation defense, deferred action for childhood arrivals.
What it reported doing in 2022
Immigration Law: legal assistance for permanent residence and US citizens to bring family members to the US or allow family members in the US to adjust their status. Application for lawful permanent residence. Naturalization/citizenship. Temporary Protected Status. Legal protection for victims of violence. Removal defense for adults and children. Board of immigration appeals. Post deportation defense. Deferred action for childhood arrivals.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown and expenses are high relative to revenue.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 94
- Transparency & Controls: 82
- Sustainability: 37
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 90.6%; rating input score 91
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 9.4%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.38; rating input score 29; 29th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 17.8%; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 5.9% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 7.2% per year; rating input score 100; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 34.7% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 90.6% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 3 filed program accomplishments · $144K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 5 people listed
- Consistency: 6 of 6 current checks pass
- Schedules: 2 filed schedules
- Filing history: 7 filing years from 2014 to 2022
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 3 filed money-flow records
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 29/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 56/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 19/100.
- High — Grant Readiness: Automatic revocation: this organization had its federal tax-exempt status automatically revoked.