The team at Toron Advogados provides specialized pro bono legal assistance in cases of criminal claims for low-income individuals.
The project
The Alê Szafir Project's mission is to offer pro bono, high-quality advocacy to those who need it most and cannot afford it.
The project was established with the aim of extending help to a greater number of individuals and honoring the legacy of lawyer Alexandra Lebelson Szafir (1966-2016), one of the founding partners of Toron Advogados. She was widely known and respected for her generosity and unwavering commitment to addressing the injustices within the Criminal Justice system.
Thus, the Alê Szafir Project institutionalized in the office the greatest legacy of one of its founders: “advocating to practically assist the underprivileged, the marginalized, and those who have suffered due to the numerous oversights in the criminal justice system.”
How we work
Under the Alê Szafir Project, we offer pro bono assistance to cases based on prior registration. The project team evaluates and prioritizes the cases based on their complexity and specific focus areas.
The criteria adopted are the following:
Prioritization axes
- Arrested adults and detained adolescents
- People who are the main financial breadwinner of the family
- Mothers and fathers of children up to 14 (fourteen years old)
- Individuals who are first-time offenders
- Topics of high impact on vulnerable communities, such as: racism, police violence and protection of the LGBTQIA+ population
Limiting criteria
- It is required that the family income is within 3 times the minimum wage (based on the reference criterion of the Public Defender’s Office).
- We do not act at the moment of the flagrancy
- We do not act in cases of people linked to criminal organizations
Coordination
