From Legal Link: “As there will never be enough lawyers to address all of the access to justice needs, Community Navigators play a key role in bridging and leveraging assets in the legal and human service systems to extend the continuum of supports. Non-legal non-profit organizations already play an important, albeit largely unrecognized, role in the legal system. On one end of the continuum there are organizations who are already actively involved in the legal ecosystem. They include housing counselors, domestic violence counselors, immigration advocates, tenants union volunteers, and credit counselors, among others. They do not resolve legal issues as a lawyer would, but they regularly interface with legal issues and navigate clients through and around them to reach a resolution.”

See Legal Link’s Community Navigators Working Paper to learn more about their importance.

Participants will have a deeper understanding of the impacts of the access to justice gap, be able to better identify legal issues that clients face, connect clients to timely and relevant tools and resources, and confidently apply the Legal First Aid method.

We will also be providing follow-up support to the trained navigators. Once someone completes the Legal First Aid training, they will be able to contact us for any questions that might arise with their clients’ legal issues and how best to provide justice navigation support to that client.

The Legal First Aid trainings have reached capacity for 2023, but please check back for updates moving forward.

The range of the work of the 18 Tri-County organizations is broad: assisting men experiencing homelessness, supporting survivors of domestic violence, providing financial training and counseling for women to achieve economic independence, assisting with re-entry post incarceration, and assisting with career readiness for people experiencing barriers to employment.

As this is a grant funded project, the training is provided at no cost to our training partners.

Legal Link, Charleston Legal Access, and Charleston Pro Bono Legal Services.

Please see Legal Link’s Impact Report here.

The South Carolina Access to Justice Commission’s Legal Resource Finder tool can guide you.