Legal link
“I have had multiple experiences with the civil legal system and was unaware of the resources available to me…I’ll be taking [Legal Link’s Legal Navigation Training Program] with me in my pocket everywhere.”
– Legal First Aid Training Participant
What We Do
Community paralegals
Legal Link uses a legal empowerment approach to train a new frontline of community justice workers in Legal First Aid.
Our Story
Legal Link is an Oakland-based nonprofit founded in 2015 with a mission to remove legal barriers that prolong poverty by adding critically needed capacity to the legal ecosystem. It does this work by training community partners to act as legal navigators––or community paralegals––filling a critical justice gap.
With poverty reduction as its goal, Legal Link strives to make the law transparent and accessible, while empowering low-income communities to know and access legal protections. Using its unique Legal First Aid curriculum and web-based tools, it is scaling nationally to shift where and how people access legal information.
Legal Link’s network of more than 1,400 trained justice workers serve families experiencing poverty across Northern California. It provides ongoing support and resources to its active network of navigators and offers program support to organizational partners across the country who want to launch similar justice worker programs in their communities.
Legal Link holds its vision as its north star: a world with equitable access to a just legal system in which communities are able to rise out of poverty.