Legal Link’s mission is to remove legal barriers that prolong poverty by adding critically needed capacity to the legal ecosystem. We are creating and supporting a new frontline of community justice workers.
OUR MODEL
Low-income families receive adequate legal help only 14% of the time. We’re here to change that. Here’s how.
Expand the Legal Ecosystem
Legal Link increases access and capacity within the legal ecosystem to address systemic barriers that prolong poverty.
Embed Community Justice Workers
Trained community partners act as justice workers for families inadequately supported by the legal system. community justice workers help to identify legal issues, surface unmet legal needs, and access legal protections.
Support Thriving Communities
Resilient communities access legal protections and build healthy families and vibrant futures.
PROBLEM + APPROACH
Families experiencing poverty are inadequately supported by our justice system, which is severely under-resourced and inherently complex. 92% of families do not get the legal help they need and more than 80% of justice issues go unidentified. These unaddressed legal issues act as barriers to housing, health, and economic stability. As a result, many people do not access critical legal protections and trust in the legal system is low.
Legal Link works to change this by training and supporting existing client-facing staff in community nonprofits to act as Community Justice Workers. These trusted partners help their clients to surface unmet legal needs, identify legal issues, and access legal protections. By meeting communities where they are, in places of trust and in times of need, we can intervene early – often addressing and resolving legal issues before they rise to the level of attorney or court intervention. We are expanding the legal ecosystem one justice worker at a time.
Legal Link currently partners with over 70 leading community-based organizations across Northern California that are deeply integrated into, and trusted by, the communities they serve. Our programs increase the skill and capacity of frontline community partners, expand the legal ecosystem, promote participation in our legal system, and move the needle on poverty-related outcomes.
Ambassador Program
Legal Link’s Ambassador Program allows community partners to learn more about legal navigation, while also receiving professional development and training opportunities.
Ambassador Program
Legal Link’s Ambassador Program allows community partners to learn more about legal navigation, while also receiving professional development and training opportunities.
Legal First Aid
The Legal First Aid Training Program trains client-facing staff in our Legal First Aid curriculum, builds legal navigation skills, and provides ongoing direct legal support to community justice workers and their clients via remote legal consultations and access to key tools and resources.
Community Navigator Fellowship
The Community Navigator Fellowship Program trains and supports frontline staff at partner organizations to become fluent in community-based legal navigation. This one-year Fellowship includes in-depth training, skill-building, and one-on-one case review with Legal Link attorneys.
Community Navigator Fellowship
The Community Navigator Fellowship Program trains and supports frontline staff at partner organizations to become fluent in community-based legal navigation. This one-year Fellowship includes in-depth training, skill-building, and one-on-one case review with Legal Link attorneys.
Training Design + Technical Assistance
We are happy to offer technical assistance to individuals and organizations who are new to, or in the process of, building justice worker programs in their community.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION
At Legal Link, we recognize and condemn white supremacy, and we support the calls for change in our systems of wealth distribution, policing, criminal justice, civil justice, and immigration policies. We stand shoulder to shoulder with those working on the frontlines to support communities in navigating, democratizing, and changing these systems while recognizing that they are built on racist, inequitable power structures. We follow those with lived experiences and we commit to making our internal practices just, welcoming, and self-reflective.
OUR IMPACT
We rely on data collection and analysis to regularly inform our work. We use two metrics to measure our success: the increased legal capability of the justice workers we train, and the impact of the justice workers’ support on their clients’ poverty-related outcomes. We will continue to refine, build, and test, while always holding families and their paths out of poverty as our north star.
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