Civil Team
The Civil Team at NCPLS provides legal assistance to people in North Carolina state prisons with issues relating to conditions of their imprisonment.
The issues we address include:
Assaults on clients by other prisoners
Use of excessive force against clients by prison staff
Sexual assaults
Prison staff interference with clients’ ability to access the courts, file grievances, receive printed materials, or practice their religion
Inadequate medical care in prison, including mental health care
Issues related to conditions of confinement in prisons
To report a concern regarding the conditions in a prison facility, you may contact us.
Please note that we are only able to represent people who are currently in North Carolina state prisons.
We cannot provide legal advice or representation to friends or loved ones, and we are often extremely limited in what we can communicate to friends and loved ones who contact us by phone or email.
The best way for us to help people who are in prison is for those people to write to us directly.
North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services
P.O. Box 25397
Raleigh, NC 27611
Advice and Advocacy
We encourage any individual with questions or concerns regarding the conditions of their imprisonment to write to us. Depending on the nature of the concern, we may respond by providing guidance on ways for incarcerated people to advocate for themselves, providing information about the legal standards related to the issue they are experiencing, or requesting additional information so that we can review their case. Some issues can be resolved through communication between an incarcerated person and prison officials. We also provide guides and self-help packets for filing different types of civil suits. For issue-specific guidance, please visit our resources page.
Representation
For a small number of cases involving issues that are particularly complex, legally and factually well documented, and which present an opportunity to affect systemic change, we provide individual case review and sometimes direct representation. We have represented individual clients in federal and state courts, including before the Industrial Commission. And we have litigated class action lawsuits regarding conditions of confinement.
We also have standing agreements under which we can be appointed in the federal district courts of the Eastern and Western Districts of North Carolina to assist with discrete phases of pro se Section 1983 lawsuits. That assistance can include: obtaining discovery on behalf of clients, providing representation during settlement conferences, assisting with identifying defendants and preparing complaints, or assisting with filing for default judgments, depending on the request made by the court. In addition, we have advocated on behalf of clients to resolve issues or negotiate settlements pre-litigation.