Benjamin Saver

This past summer I had a wonderful experience working with Legal Aid Services of Oregon’s Farmworker program (“LASO”) in Hillsborough Oregon.  LASO is a state organization and this particular office represented low income farmworkers in a variety of issues including employment law, taxes, and immigration.

LASO has been able to improve the working and living conditions of farmworkers in Oregon through their representation of individual clients and performing outreach to migrant and seasonal farmworker communities. 

Although I mostly worked out of LASO’s office in Hillsborough I had the opportunity to travel and work with the lawyers in the Woodburn office.  This summer I worked on a variety of projects including writing memos on employment law, researching immigration regulations, writing demand letters for late payment of wages, and representing a client in an administrative hearing. Another important part of my work was outreach to local farmworker communities.  I traveled with staff attorneys and paralegals to migrant labor camps throughout Oregon in order to inform workers of their legal rights in Oregon and give workers information about other local organizations that could provide them services.

I am thankful to PILP for its support this summer in my internship which provided me the opportunity to help defend farmworkers rights here in Oregon.