In November last year, a new organization named Frontline Justice was initiated with an ambitious vision to combat the rising access to justice crisis. The main focus of this mission is to empower a category of legal helpers known as justice workers. They aim to make justice workers a common presence in every state in the USA by 2035.
The initiative has enlisted a lineup of founders with notable credentials. That includes the likes of Rebecca Sandefur, an eminent scholar in access to justice field who made an appearance on LawNext in 2020; Matthew Burnett, senior program officer for the Access to Justice Research Initiative at the American Bar Foundation (ABF); and Jim Sandman, president emeritus of the Legal Services Corporation who was a guest on LawNext in 2019; among other notable figures.
The current CEO of Frontline Justice, Nikole Nelson, caught up with LawNext’s host Bob Ambrogi recently. Before joining Frontline Justice, Nelson had been the executive director of the Alaska Legal Services Corporation, where she played a key role in progressing a statewide community justice worker project. It won the 2019 World Justice Challenge and brought major changes in the Alaska Supreme Court rule in 2022 which allowed justice workers supervised by Alaska Legal Services to provide limited scope legal help in certain situations.
Nelson shared how justice workers significantly enhanced the legal services for people residing in the remotest regions of Alaska. She also spoke about how the novel model of justice workers could be deployed in other states to bring accessible help to those who are currently without adequate legal aid. However, she acknowledges the challenges Frontline Justice faces in achieving its mission and shares her strategies for overcoming them.
For an in-depth understanding of Frontline Justice’s mission, you can listen to the full episode on LawNext.