Frontline Justice says community justice workers can scale legal help; Alaska model credited with tangible gains

Nicole Nelson, founding CEO of Frontline Justice, told a Washington State Bar Association audience that community justice workers are "the justice equivalent of a community health aide," trained local people who provide timely, targeted, limited-scope legal assistance in places with few lawyers.

Nelson said the scale of unmet civil legal need is large and cited national research — including figures from the Legal Services Corporation and Washington civil legal needs studies — showing a majority of low-income civil legal needs go unmet. She said these gaps are not likely to be closed by more pro bono hours or small funding increases alone.

Drawing on the Alaska experience, Nelson said there are now more than 200 community justice workers in roughly 42 communities (many off the road system) who handle high-impact, simple legal issues and, in some instances, more complex matters with additional training and supervision. She said the Alaska program received broad authorization from that state's supreme court to allow community-based helpers to provide limited legal services.

Nelson pointed to an NSF-funded study she said showed community justice workers helped draw down about $23,000,000 in SNAP benefits that otherwise would not have been distributed during a state processing crisis. She urged conference attendees to think about scaling: start with "low-hanging" legal problems, design lightweight training with adult-education specialists, and integrate legal skills into trusted helpers already working in communities.

Frontline Justice is developing training modules and toolkits and hosts an online collaboration platform called Groundwork, where jurisdictions and sponsors can coordinate. Nelson said there is a Washington room on Groundwork and invited interested organizations to join and use localized materials when jurisdictions authorize justice workers.

Nelson's presentation did not itself create or change any law; she urged jurisdictions and organizations to consider pilot programs and to use the evidence from Alaska and other states when designing applications for Washington's entity regulation pilot.

Next steps: Frontline Justice will provide training modules and Groundwork resources; interested parties can join the Washington room on Groundwork and look for WSBA outreach materials for more details.