Mapping Justice Work: Relaunching the U.S. Justice Worker Program Index

Within the past few years, formal Community-Based Justice Worker (CBJW) programs have emerged as one promising innovation to meet the nation’s access to justice crisis. By authorizing trained community advocates to deliver certain forms of legal services, these programs are reshaping how legal support is delivered—and who can deliver it—by localizing legal help to the organizations and communities from whom people already seek help.

As these efforts expand across the United States, transparency and shared learning are essential. Many states are exploring regulatory reform, designing pilot programs, and strengthening models of collaboration between legal and community service sectors. Yet, until now, granular information about how these programs are designed and implemented has remained relatively siloed and incomplete.

An original inventory of programs was published by our colleagues Cayley Balser and Stacy Rupprecht Jane in “The Diverse Landscape of Community-Based Justice Workers” and became further itemized in a September 2024 information chart. Today, our updated program index now builds on these foundations, offering a clearer view than ever before of how jurisdictions are designing, authorizing, and implementing Justice Worker programs.

The 2026 Program Index

Since the launch of the first formal CBJW programs, jurisdictions have invested substantial resources into navigating regulatory reform and designing and implementing programs, as well as refining those programs based on lessons learned. Over the past several years, public-facing information has largely focused on three programmatic topics: 

1. The civil justice gap and Justice Workers as a potential solution
2. The need for unauthorized practice of law reform to make justice work possible
3. The outcomes or potential impact of Justice Worker programs

However, what remained missing was a comprehensive, comparative view of how existing programs actually operate—the regulatory contours that govern them, how program design reflects those regulatory boundaries, and what consumer protection features have been implemented.

Our teams at Community Justice Advocates of Utah (CJAU) and Innovation for Justice (i4J) regularly receive requests for detailed information about how our suite of Justice Worker programs function in practice. To respond to these needs and to support a more transparent exchange of information, we have partnered with IAALS to provide an update to the 2024 itemized information chart, reflecting the most current available information on authorized programs and regulatory structures.

The updated program index serves as a central repository for anyone designing, implementing, or exploring Justice Worker models. It includes new or expanded data fields on program features such as:

• The breadth and depth of Justice Worker training
• The applicable credentialing process(es)
• The authorized scope of services and areas of law
• The level and nature of attorney involvement
• The formal consumer protections/oversight mechanisms in place

These additions reflect the areas where system actors most often seek clarity from our teams as current program administrators. The updated index is designed not only as a resource but as a collaborative tool for knowledge-sharing and program development.

View the U.S. Justice Worker Program Index here

Defining Formal U.S. Justice Worker Programs

As the Justice Worker movement has evolved, gaining increasing national attention, defining what constitutes a “Justice Worker program” has become increasingly important as we engage in conversations about both legal regulatory reform and program design. While there is consensus that formal, state-credentialed Justice Worker programs are a new form of U.S. Community Legal Education and a new pathway for delivery of legal help, the exact confines of the definition continue to evolve as the movement progresses.

Each jurisdiction faces distinct regulatory, political, and resource constraints, and existing models have been tailored to respond to those realities. For the purposes of this program index, we include only those programs that authorize community-based advocates to provide legal advice or services through a formal jurisdictional mechanism. These are programs that expand access to justice by integrating authorized legal assistance into trusted community contexts.

This definition does not capture navigator, Street Law, or lay advocacy programs limited to providing legal information, nor alternative legal provider models with separate licensing and fee-based structures, such as accredited representatives or allied legal professionals. While these programs are beyond the index’s scope, they remain part of a broader global tradition of Community Legal Education and power-conscious advocacy—fields that long predate formal U.S. Justice Worker authorization frameworks.

Proposed Programs and Future Index Updates

Given the rapid pace of regulatory experimentation, we have not included a list of pending or proposed reforms in the index. Proposals often shift during public comment and regulatory approval; we have chosen to only include finalized regulations and active programs.

As jurisdictions formally authorize frameworks enabling state-credentialed Justice Worker programs to seek approval, we will update the index to include those jurisdictions and, once implemented, add the corresponding program-level details.

Users should note that this index is intended as a living resource. It reflects information publicly available or shared directly with our organizations at the time of publication. Individuals and entities should verify program information.

Looking Ahead: Building and Leading Together

It is imperative that this work continues to be collaborative. The success of Justice Worker programs depends on a shared commitment to information-sharing, mutual learning, and collective problem-solving across jurisdictions. By pooling experience and evidence, we can reduce the investigative burden for present and future legal regulators, program designers, and policymakers—allowing us to focus more energy on expanding access to legal knowledge.

Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that information, like justice itself, is not siloed but shared. As new programs emerge and existing ones mature, continued collaboration will be critical to designing the next generation of community-centered legal systems—ones built on trust, community accountability, and collective innovation.

We invite colleagues across the country to use, contribute to, and strengthen this index as a shared tool to advance Justice Worker programs, to champion Justice Workers, and to realize widespread access to justice.

Have an update or additional information for the index? Contact Hayley Cousin at info@cjau.org and/or Antonio Coronado at cle@innovation4justice.org.

This updated program index concludes CJAU and i4J’s “Our Community Justice Network” series, which highlights (i) the Justice Workers making legal help accessible and (ii) tools for thoughtful program design and implementation. To explore prior resources, visit CJAU’s Impact Page and i4J’s Directory of Resources for Realizing Justice Work.