This course is for advocates within the Florida Legal Aid Community however...

If you would like to find out how to bring Community Lawyering to your state or region, contact Jaime Berton at 617-946-4672 x 4112 or jberton@legalaideducation.org. 

Community Lawyering

Promoting an expansive view of a legal aid lawyer’s role, our Community Lawyering training underlines the importance of thinking beyond litigation in addressing the kind of major problems that too often face legal aid clients (while retaining litigation as a vital tool). Addressing the pressing issues of a recognizable case study, participants learn the multi-tactic tools of a successful advocacy campaign, including media and outreach skills, facilitative leadership, action research, targeted planning, campaign feasibility and power analysis. You will also explore the relationship between traditional lawyering and these other disciplines and how, as a lawyer, to contribute most effectively to broad based advocacy campaigns. ‘Tales from the trenches’ - stories of successful legal services partnerships with campaign based advocacy efforts - enrich this learning experience, and you'll have the opportunity to apply the learning to think about campaign based approaches to the advocacy challenges you face back home. 

[On post-Katrina FEMA difficulties] "The concepts of Community Lawyering really put the pieces all together for me and showed me how to push (my) agenda forward."

- Raine Thompson, ACLU Jackson, Mississippi

Sample Training Agenda

Here's how the three days of Community Lawyering typically break down (we also include timely breaks for beverages and snacks, as well as an hour's lunch or dinner):

DAY 1

2.30pm - 4.30: Welcome, Introduction and How We View our Communities

4.45 - 6.00: Community Understanding and Relationship Building

7.00 - 8.30: Community Lawyering in Your Region

DAY 2

8.30am - 9.00: What Community Lawyers Do

9.00 - 12.15: Choosing Issues, Power Mapping, Stakeholder Analysis

1.30 - 3.30: Identity and Difference

3.45 - 5.45: Community Organizing and Leadership

7.00 - 8.00pm: One-to-One exercise 

DAY 3

8.30am - 10.15: Communications and Public Policy Advocacy

10.15 - 1.00: Action Planning, Campaigning and Local Tactics

1.00 - 2.15: Carrying the Work Back Home

3.00 - 3.45pm: State Delegations discussion

For further Community Lawyering information, please click here.