D.C. Task Force Considers New Program to Close “Justice Gap”

Justice is blind to income inequality under the proposed CJW program. (Courtesy: Unsplash)

MICHAEL SHTROM: This October, the window for public comment regarding a new proposal from the District of Columbia Courts, establishing a community justice worker program in D.C. closed. The policy may be enacted pending a review of public comments by the Civil Legal Regulatory Reform Task Force, which was created by the D.C. Courts in 2023 to investigate potential reforms that promote equality and access to legal representation. 

Community justice worker (CJW) programs allow trained D.C. citizens who lack a law degree, such as law students and doctors, to provide low-income individuals with certain legal services under the supervision of a licensed attorney. Programs like these already flourished in jurisdictions such as Alaska, where community justice workers helped low-income Alaskans apply for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and other similar programs. Seeking to follow Alaska’s example, the task force released a report last July in which the task force’s members unanimously urged D.C. Courts to institute a framework for implementing the program in the District, after which it sought public comment on the report. 

Initiatives like this one can go a long way toward closing what is known as the “justice gap,” a phenomenon in which wealthier individuals, due to having greater resources, tend to receive better, more comprehensive legal representation. This leaves lower-income people with little to no representation in crucial cases such as “divorce cases, child-support cases, and housing Conditions cases.” In fact, according to the D.C. Access to Justice Commission, anywhere from 75-90% of individuals involved in these types of cases have no legal representation in the District. This has contributed to what the task force’s report refers to as an “access-to-justice” crisis, which has thus far not been addressed through more traditional means such as pro bono work on the part of lawyers. 

In addition to providing more legal services for low-income citizens, another benefit of CJW programs that the task force recognized is the potential for decreasing the “trust gap” between lawyers and low-income clients. As community justice workers would be more capable of providing legal services in the cultural context and language of the clients they serve, they could connect more closely with a wider variety of clients and bring more legitimacy to the justice system through closing the justice gap. 

As a potential alternative, the task force proposed a number of similar actions that D.C. Courts could take to close the justice gap. One such proposal was to further study the Licensed Legal Practitioner (LLP) model. Under the LLP model, legal practitioners who do not have a law degree may directly provide legal services to the public without attorney supervision. Because LLPs would not be working under an attorney or  nonprofit legal services organization, they would likely charge their clients fees for their work, making them a more effective solution for middle-income clients. Additionally, given the potentially risk-laden nature of the proposal, the task force urges the D.C. Courts to afford priority consideration to the CJW program proposal.

Now that the deadline for public comment has passed, the proposal will undergo further consideration by the task force and the D.C. Courts before potentially being implemented in the District.

Michael Shtrom is a freshman from Los Altos, CA studying Public Policy. Outside of On the Record, he writes for The Hoya and is involved with GU Politics.