Community Justice Workers
Every year, millions of Texans face civil legal crises alone. Evictions, wage theft, family emergencies, debt. Not because help doesn't exist, but because the legal system was never designed to reach them.
The barriers are distance, language, trust, cost, and a profession built by institutions for institutions. More lawyers, distributed the same way, will not close that gap. Closing it requires rethinking who delivers legal help, where, and how.
The answer is Community Justice Workers.
What Is a Community Justice Worker?
Community Justice Workers, or CJWs, are trusted, community-rooted professionals who bridge the gap between people and the legal system. They are not attorneys, but they are trained advocates, often with lived experience in the communities they serve, who make the law accessible to people who face real barriers to getting help.
CJWs can include shelter volunteers, faith leaders, community health workers, social workers, legal advocates, and others who are trained to provide critical legal help on everyday issues that traditional legal services aren't reaching.
What CJWs Do
CJWs meet people where they are — in their communities, in their language, and in spaces they already trust. Through EJI, trained CJWs across Texas are providing:
Legal information and outreach through trusted community partnerships
Plain-language materials that are accessible and culturally relevant
Community education at churches, clinics, schools, and neighborhood organizations
One-on-one navigation that helps individuals understand their options and next steps
Connections to legal help including referrals to attorneys when a case requires it
The Scale of the Problem
Despite a 400% increase in licensed attorneys over the past five decades, more than 120 million legal problems go unaddressed every year in the United States. Texas ranks 44th in access to civil legal aid lawyers. Five million Texans qualify for legal aid.
The conclusion is clear: more lawyers, distributed the same way, will not solve this. The system needs a new kind of advocate.
A Movement Taking Hold Across the Country
Texas is not alone in recognizing this need. Across the country, states are building frameworks that allow Community Justice Workers to provide civil legal help with proper training and oversight.
Alaska was among the first, launching a CJW program in 2018 to address severe shortages in rural and Indigenous communities. The results were measurable: more people served, more legal needs identified and addressed. Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and others have followed, each developing their own frameworks suited to their communities. Some frameworks implement Unauthorized Practice of Law reforms, some create certification programs, and some have created regulatory sandboxes.
The evidence is consistent. Where CJWs are trained, supported, and authorized to act, more people get help.
The Texas Story
In August 2024, the Supreme Court of Texas proposed a licensing framework for Community Justice Workers — a significant step toward a system that could authorize trained non-attorney advocates to provide limited civil legal services. It would create two new non-attorney authorized legal advocate roles, Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals and Court Access Assistants, that would be trained and certified to provide simple legal services to low-income Texans.
See those rules here →In November 2024, the Supreme Court of Texas placed implementation on pause — and that is where it stands for now.
In the meantime, EJI's Community Justice Workers are already at work: providing legal information, navigating systems, and meeting communities where they are — under the rules that authorize them today, without violating Unauthorized Practice of Law constraints.
We are building the evidence base that demonstrates why this model works and what becomes possible when Texas moves forward.
When it does, we will be ready.
Interested in becoming a Community Justice Worker?
CJWs are at the heart of what EJI is building. If you are a community member, advocate, social worker, or frontline helper interested in expanding your role in legal access, we want to hear from you.