US Legal Empowerment Network
An intersectional, intergenerational network of organizers, lawyers and community members working to ensure people have the tools to know, use, shape, and transform the laws and systems that impact their lives.
In the US, tens of millions of people face justice problems every year.
For those living on the systemic edge, a single event—a medical emergency, eviction notice, or change in immigration status—can trigger a cascade of crises that lead to poverty, family separation, incarceration, or even death.
Yet most people are forced to navigate an intimidating and complex legal system alone—without a lawyer, without support, and without the knowledge needed to defend their rights.
This crisis has grown more acute as our democracy comes under attack and isolation deepens.
The US Legal Empowerment Network is coming together to build a more just and inclusive legal ecosystem.
Through a strategy rooted in hope, solidarity and legal empowerment, we are striving for a world where communities have the tools to redefine justice and rebuild democracy together.
Meet Some of Our Members
I keep thinking about how autocracy scales. These authoritarian leaders are learning from each other. They figure out how to oppress and how to silence. [W]hen you take law, you disrupt it, you democratize it, you put it in the hands of people, and you fuse that with community power, you can really shape and build new forms of governance.
Sukti Dhital—Human rights attorney and the Executive Director of the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU Law, where she advances legal empowerment and community-driven justice for marginalized groups globally.
Legal empowerment means to me that people have the tools they need to change things for themselves. [Lawyers] are just part of the puzzle, but not the entire solution … [P]eople can become empowered and understand the tools they need to shift things for themselves.
Gaby Hernandez—Executive Director of ÓRALE, where she leads innovative, intersectional advocacy for immigrant-centered justice and policy reform in Southern California.
[W]e are seeing a clear erasure of a lot of the progress that we have done over the many decades of work from the Civil Rights movement to Black Lives Matter … before that erasure happens, it’s important for us to know the laws that exist and activate them.
Antonio Gutierrez—Strategic Coordinator for Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), where they co-found and lead multiple community-driven initiatives focused on immigrant rights and housing justice in Chicago.
Legal Empowerment brings us back to our humanity; and into our being. It’s a breath of democracy … [W]e are training around digital organizing, how to do campaigns, how to build tenant unions, and how to be community paralegals.
Rev. Charles Unique—Legal Empowerment Organizer at Tenants Transforming Greater St. Louis and Operations Director at City Greens Market, integrating grassroots strategy, ministry, and design to advance housing justice, food sovereignty, and Black trans liberation.
[T]he Legal Empowerment Network … reminds us that rest, solidarity, love, joy, peace, and healing [are] essential to legal knowledge and legal practice … [I]t’s one of the most human, safe places that I’ve had to think about my work, to do my work.
Jhody Polk—Founder of the Legal Empowerment & Advocacy Hub (LEAH) and the Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative (JLI), where she establishes legal empowerment and community peacebuilding as essential tools for abolition and justice.
[W]ith widening inequities and crumbling structures around our courts and around our federal government, it’s more important than ever to make sure that communities are empowered to know, use and shape the law.
Kate Crowley Richardson—Executive Director of Legal Link, where she advances community-centered legal empowerment through strategic partnerships and systemic reform.
How to get involved
Meet Us
Get to know the US Legal Empowerment Network.
Explore Our Events
Learn about the first US Legal Empowerment Convening.
Support us
Donate to the US Legal Empowerment Network.