COMMUNITY LAWYERING

A PRO ACTIVE

STRATEGY TO

BUILD POWER IN

COMMUNITIES

S.L.A.T.

WENATCHEE, WA

OCTOBER 10, 2018

MISSION DRIVEN PRACTICE?

Public Interest lawyers have often wrestled with competing

missions. They are:

• Access to justice – focusing on resolution of problems in court.

• Law Reform – Changing structures to better accommodate clients

needs.

• Community empowerment – placing the client in a position of power

and advantage

• Community Economic Development – corporate counsel for the

poor.

DEVELOPING POWER IN THE CLIENT COMMUNITY

• The only approach that addresses power has been variously

called community lawyering, social justice lawyering,

rebellious lawyering, client centered lawyering; democratic

lawyering, opportunity lawyering, community

empowerment, collaborative lawyering. These all make up

the academic background of the practice

• Does the client leave the relationship any more powerful

than when the relationship began.

COMPETING DELIVERY SYSTEMS

CLINICAL MODEL

Who is in charge

• Lawyer determines the terms of

engagement.

• Lawyer determines the relevant

facts and narrative.

• Lawyer defines the problem and

solution

• Lawyer defines success.

• Lawyer retains power/Client

dependence

COMMUNITY LAWYERING

• The best solutions to any problem

necessarily involve those directly

affected.

• Never do for any group what they

can do for themselves.

• Use the law to place the clients in

control of their lives and

neighborhood institutions.

• Race and ethnicity become assets.

• Power and recognition transferred

to the community

You Don’t Have to Choose/The Approaches Can Be Merged

What Managers Can do:

• Require some time each week out of

the office

• Recognize and manage dual intake

systems

• Put race on the table in case selection

• Employ the Opportunity Analysis at

case selection/staff meetings.

• Promote the balance in weekly case

discussions.

STANDARDS OF PRACTICE FOR CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES

• STANDARD 7.16 ON REPRESENTATION OF

GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS STANDARD:

The practitioner should proficiently and zealously

represent groups and organizations to respond to

the legal needs of the communities served by the

provider.

• Representation of groups and organizations is

often a central component of strategies to

respond to needs of low income communities.

Ongoing interaction with community

organizations can also serve as an important

source of information about needs in the

community that help guide a provider’s strategic

planning efforts.

COMMUNITY LAWYERING PRACTICE

Meet clients on their own turf/Get out of

the office.

Approach the community with an open

mind rather than an agenda

Mantra: Lawyer doesn’t always know

best

Build infrastructure and capacity in the

community.

Leave something for the community to

use, e.g. maps/data

Touchstone: Is what I’m doing self-

sustaining for the community?

SCOPE OF COMMUNITY LAWYERING PRACTICE

8

• Advocacy crosses substantive silos.

• Advocate employs all legal tools to

achieve the client’s goal, including:

• Community legal education.

• Transactional work.

• Capacity building.

• Litigation.

• Legislative advocacy.

HOW COMMUNITY LAWYERS CREATE OPPORTUNITY

Ensure Ensure meaningful community participation, leadership and ownership in change efforts.

PromotePromote cases that are catalytic, coordinated, and result in a triple bottom line; (ie. Equity, Economic inclusion and Environment).

Expose and reduce

Expose and reduce local and regional disparities.

Examine and expose

Examine and expose racialized structures.

Integrate Integrate strategies that focus on people with those focused on improving places.

COMMUNITY LAWYERING OBJECTIVES

• Include client groups in strategies to couple community building and legal/administrative advocacy

• Let client groups guide the strategy using lawyers as one aspect of the strategy

• Open door for client groups to explore how race and poverty frame opportunity (this exploration and discussion must take place before any discussion of specific remedy)

• Use data to demonstrate impact of policy decisions and provide visual examples of inequity.

• Ground truth these examples.

• Create sustainable knowledge and programs so the lawyer can leave

WHAT ADVOCATES MUST DO TO PREPARE TO ENGAGE THE COMMUNITY

• Engage with humility

• Understand that relationships take time.

• Understand that you are a lawyer and may

never become a part of the community you

serve. You serve them nonetheless.

• You cannot lead, but you can offer

opportunities many of which will be rejected.

• You must bring all the tools of the law to your

client’s case. If you don’t possess them, you

must find them.

• You must have the difficult conversations about

race and identity at the beginning of the effort.

WHAT MANAGERS NEED TO DO?

• Require some time each week to be spent out of the office and in the

community.

• Realize that relationships take time.

• Value these activities in employee evaluations.

• Recognize that you are managing dual intake systems.

• Use staff meetings to report on progress so that all staff are aware of

the efforts.

• Employ an opportunity analysis in case selection.

• Prioritize community work for the most marginalized groups.

QUINN COTTAGESHOUSING DESIGNED BY HOMELESS

QUINN COTTAGESHOUSING DESIGNED BY HOMELESS

QUINN COTTAGESHOUSING DESIGNED BY HOMELESS

QUINN COTTAGES

• Won national awards for

design and resident council

program.

• Transitions 85% of residents to

permanent housing with stable

income within 18 months.

• Has moved 24 families from

homelessness to home

ownership in past 10 years.

FROM HOMELESSNESS TO HOME OWNERSHIP

HOUSING DESIGNED TO REUNITE FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE

SERNA VILLAGE AT MCCLELLAN PARK

• Built on the former McClellan AFB.

• McKinney claim submitted by non profit created

by loaves & fishes.

• Contentious history as county tried to deny

claim.

• Threatened litigation.

• 96 3-4 bedroom units built to suit.

• Designed to reunite homeless families with kids

in foster care.

ROOMING HOUSE WITH PROGRAM DESIGNED WITH INPUT FROM MENTAL HEALTH CONSUMERS

HOME OWNERSHIP: THE VIRTUAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL

• Low income buyers create a

development corporation for one

development.

• Pre development, engineering,

construction are contracted out.

• Organized client groups provide political

clout for the project.

THE VIRTUAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL

• The developer’s fee or “profit” is used to

reduce the price of homes.

• Corporation is disbanded after homes

are built, occupied and debts paid.

• Over 500 units built to date in Northern

California using this model.

SINGLE FAMILY HOMES IN SACRAMENTO

SINGLE FAMILY HOMES IN SACRAMENTO

FARMWORKER HOUSING IN DIXON,CA.

FARM WORKER HOUSING IN DIXON,CA

WELFARE JOBS PROGRAMS DESIGNED BY RECIPIENTS

• Placed 1200 recipients into jobs

averaging $16.50 per hour all with

benefits.

• Placed workers in jobs in the health care

industry with upward mobility.

• Targeted health care industry.

• Coordinated job training with hiring

agreements.

CHILDCARE

WHY WE ENGAGE IN COMMUNITY LAWYERING

29

“The legal aid lawyer will eventually go or

be taken away; He does not have to stay,

and the government which gave him can

take him back just as it does welfare. He

can be another hook on which poor

people depend, or he can help the poor

build something which rests upon

themselves—something which cannot be

taken away and which will not leave until

all of them leave.” Stephen Wexler, 79

Yale law journal, 1049, 1073 (1970

FINAL THOUGHT

• Highly attuned seekers and leaders have the ability

to see across categories and to recognize the

importance of bringing love into even the most

potentially mathematical equations. They also

importantly -- and here I think especially of Dr. King

-- place themselves in service to more than caring

for those in pain. They also place themselves in

service to the public face of love: justice. And they

call upon each and all of us to do the same.

• john a powell , Racing to Justice

QUESTIONS

• Are you currently engaged in community

lawyering that seeks to build power in the

communities you serve? How will the power

remain after your work is done?

• Do program structures encourage or impede

community lawyering?

• How are you accountable to the community?

• If you are engaging in community lawyering, how

are you accountable to your client

• What does it look like to be accountable to

communities most harmed by poverty and

racism?