The Law Belongs to Everyone: Legal Link Trains NYC’s Next Generation of Justice Advocates
The Law Belongs to Everyone: Legal Link Trains NYC's Next Generation of Justice Advocates
The Law Belongs to Everyone: Legal Link Trains NYC’s Next Generation of Justice Advocates
June 2026
This summer, Legal Link traveled to New York City for two moments that felt both timely and necessary. We trained Defying Legal Gravity’s inaugural cohort of Youth Justice Advocates in Legal First Aid®, then joined DLG and Fordham University School of Law for “The Law Belongs to Everyone” — a convening rooted in the belief that legal literacy is a form of collective power.
We left with our convictions deepened and our commitment renewed.
Putting Legal Knowledge Where It Belongs
We are living through a moment when rights are being stripped away, protest is being criminalized, democracy feels increasingly unstable, and systems of power are becoming more aggressive and harder to challenge. In moments like this, the law cannot remain hidden behind institutions, degrees, and gatekeeping. It must belong to the people. And young people must be part of that fight.
That’s the premise Legal First Aid® is built on. In a single day of training, participants learn to identify potential legal issues, ask the right questions to understand someone’s situation, and connect community members with the right resources and organizations. They learn to help people navigate legal and court-related documents while ensuring they receive the support they need. The results from this cohort say it all:
- Every single participant — 100% — increased their legal capability — the knowledge, confidence, and capacity to act on legal issues — after just one day of training.
- On average, participants improved their scores by 41%. The highest single improvement was 72%. These are not marginal gains. This is transformation.
- Confidence shifted too. Seven of the nine participants reported increased self-efficacy scores after training — a greater belief in their ability to solve difficult problems, find solutions, and help others navigate complex situations.
Who Was in the Room
All nine advocates were between 18 and 24 years old. The cohort was racially diverse — Black, Asian, Latinx, White, and multiracial — and multilingual, with participants whose primary languages included Spanish and Mandarin in addition to English. These are exactly the young people who already move through communities carrying trust, relationships, and informal influence. Legal First Aid® gives that trust a new dimension.
When asked what they hoped to take away from the training, participants named goals that we hear across every cohort: better address service gaps, improve outcomes for the people around them, build their professional skills, and promote change in their communities. They came with purpose. The data shows they left with the tools to match it.
Satisfaction was high. In their own words: the training was “very digestible,” “conversational,” “interactive,” and offered a “comprehensive and holistic analysis” of client interaction in the access-to-justice context. One participant noted that even the fidget toys — Knicks-colored, naturally — helped underscore the human element at the heart of this work.
“The Law Belongs to Everyone”
The following day, Legal Link joined Defying Legal Gravity and Fordham Law’s Center on Race, Law, and Justice for a full-day convening, where more than 100 youth and community members, including DLG alumni, gathered to share and learn. Current DLG Legal Empowerment Fellows led workshops spanning constitutional law, civil rights, criminal law, immigration law, and family law. Partner organizations from across New York City led additional sessions throughout the day.
Legal First Aid® was woven into the convening as a through-line: not just a workshop, but a framework for thinking about how legal knowledge travels from institutions to communities, and what it means to be a first responder to a legal problem before a lawyer ever enters the picture.
A Partnership Rooted in Shared Belief
The law has spent too long belonging only to those with access to it. We’re proud to be part of changing that — one navigator, one advocate, one community at a time.
Legal Link is a national nonprofit dedicated to closing the justice gap through legal empowerment.
Our flagship program, Legal First Aid®, trains frontline community workers and advocates to identify legal issues and connect people to the help they need.