As a litigator, Tavella chooses her pro bono work based on her litigation schedule. If she’s in the discovery phase of a case or potentially going to trial, her time is limited, and she cannot focus on a pro bono case.

Although DWT doesn’t impose a specific number of hours that attorneys are expected to devote to pro bono work, the firm encourages fifty hours a year, if possible. “For those meeting the fifty hours, the firm sends swag in recognition of the efforts put forth,” notes Tavella.

Examples of pro bono cases include immigration, reproductive issues, voting rights, and more. “Within Alaska, the top matters requiring legal assistance are family law issues and landlord/tenant issues. Our attorneys use virtual meetings to assist clients across the state with family law issues,” says Tavella.

DWT employs more than 600 attorneys across eleven offices in the United States, including one in Anchorage. In the Anchorage office, a pro bono partnership with the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault focuses on assisting with domestic violence and sexual assault cases. Tavella says, “Our services include protective orders and divorces or a combination. At times, there’s just a divorce; sometimes that divorce requires a protective order, sometimes not.”

Tavella also notes the need for aid to military veterans. “Alaska Legal Services has attempted to connect with veteran clinics across the state but hasn’t received a lot of response. Sometimes people who need help don’t know who to connect with. Similarly, those willing to give the help don’t necessarily know who to reach out to.”

What is Alaska Legal Services?

Because professional lawyers cannot handle the entire unmet need, Alaska Legal Services Corporation (ALSC) exists as a statewide civil legal aid provider for low-income individuals and seniors.

“The most critical issue is that most low-income individuals will not be able to access help for their legal problems,” says Executive Director Maggie Humm. “According to the most recent study by the Legal Services Corporation, the federal funder of civil legal services in the United States, an astounding 92 percent of people with low incomes can’t get the legal assistance they need to address these life-altering problems. There exists an enormous justice gap in our nation and in Alaska.”

A justice gap occurs when important legal needs of low-income individuals are not met due to insufficient funding and support. These individuals risk losing their homes, healthcare, access to food, and the ability to protect themselves or family members against abuse. These unresolved problems lead to more poverty in a seemingly endless cycle.

Legal Services Corporation, a nonprofit established by Congress in 1974, provides funds to ALSC, and donations supplement that income, somewhat like public broadcasting. Today ALSC has fifty-five employees across fifteen locations: in Anchorage, Bethel, Dillingham, Fairbanks, Juneau, Kenai, Ketchikan, Kodiak, Kotzebue, Nome, Palmer, Utqiaġvik, and Wasilla. In addition, two medical-legal partnership sites at Alaska Native Medical Center and Providence Alaska Medical Center have a statewide reach, too, as patients travel to Anchorage from across Alaska for treatment.

“In 2023, we handled 6,460 cases that impacted almost 19,000 Alaskans. Over half of those households have kids in them; one-third of the households have one or more individuals with a disability; and over 25 percent are seniors,” shares Humm.

Sometimes ALSC reaches out to firms like DWT to request pro bono work. The nonprofit’s website also solicits volunteer assistance, such as attorneys to staff the Landlord Tenant Helpline.

Humm says, “Our work focuses on helping vulnerable individuals facing the loss of a critical need or service, including the loss of food security, housing, healthcare, and personal safety due to domestic violence or sexual assault.”

Although domestic violence and sexual assault are criminal matters, Humm notes that sometimes incidents are not reported, so the criminal justice system may not be activated. And such cases might also be entangled with civil matters. “Survivors often need domestic protective orders to keep the abuser from going to the home, place of work, or the kids’ school. The orders also serve to implement safe visitation measures if children are involved,” says Humm.

ALSC also provides domestic violence survivors with legal services for financial security. “They need to sort out any property or assets they might be entitled to—if they were married to or in a domestic partnership with the abuser—so that they can be financially secure and restart their life,” notes Humm. “Financial insecurity often keeps domestic violence victims from being able to start over and get out of an abusive relationship. It’s really important for survivors to get safe and stay safe.”

Seniors across Alaska also benefit greatly from ALSC services. “We help seniors with a lot of the same things the general population needs, like SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits and housing issues,” says Humm. “Seniors also need assistance to access healthcare benefits and assistance in accessing Medicare and Medicaid benefits that they are legally entitled to. Sadly, we also see a fair amount of elder abuse and elder fraud. We can often help those individuals by securing financial abuse protective orders.”

To further bridge the justice gap, ALSC launched the Community Justice Worker (CJW) program in 2019. This movement started as partnerships with tribal healthcare facilities, as ALSC embedded attorneys to help patients address their legal needs.

“Our services have expanded over the years as a result of the implementation of creative ideas designed to improve access to justice across numerous platforms.” says Humm.

Sarah Carver, co-director of ALSC’s Community Justice Worker Resource Center, explains how CJW works. “We identify discrete legal issues that can be addressed with the help of a community member and teach volunteers about these issues through our training courses,” she says. “Our community justice worker communicates directly with clients to resolve those issues within and outside of their community.”

The online courses are free and can be done at the volunteer’s own pace and schedule.

To date, 225 people have completed training courses, and 260 volunteers are currently going through training modules. The training focuses on five areas: SNAP advocacy, preparing a will, the Indian Child Welfare Act, debt collection defense, and domestic violence protective order advocacy.

“Across the board, the majority of our CJWs take more than one training course, but most don’t take all of the courses,” explains Carver. “About 30 percent of CJWs are taking the courses on behalf of a tribe or tribal community, and another 30 percent are from social service agencies. But anyone can take the courses. We currently have CJWs in forty-seven communities across Alaska.”

CJWs were instrumental in helping numerous households when the state fell behind in processing thousands of SNAP applications. “Over the past one and a half years, the SNAP delay was one of the biggest needs we saw,” recalls Carver. “Part of that crisis—especially in the beginning—was people not realizing the delay as a legal issue. Our CJWs communicated the message that people didn’t have to just wait it out; there were actual legal remedies that could be used. Once that knowledge was out there, CJWs were able to address it directly by negotiating with public assistance and, in some cases, going to hearings with or on behalf of the clients in regard to their benefits.”

The SNAP delay affected seniors as well. “Part of the issue with the crisis was that the public assistance department fell behind in processing applications. That department is also responsible for senior assistance, including Medicaid. The CJWs were often able to take care of the SNAP delay, Medicaid, and senior benefit delays all at once,” says Carver. She adds, “CJWs specifically work with senior clients for will preparation and end-of-life planning.”

The CJW program continues to grow, and new training modules will be rolled out over the next couple of years. “There’s a high need for CJWs in disaster response for FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] applications and appeals,” says Carver. “We also see a need for CJWs to handle probate matters to clear titles for property. This is a problem, especially in rural areas.”

The CJW program has garnered national attention. Last fall, Carver and other leaders from ALSC traveled to Bethel with Rachel Rossi, director of the US Department of Justice’s Office for Access to Justice, to meet with local leaders.

The success of Alaska’s CJW program has led to a new national movement led by Frontline Justice. The initiative was founded by four distinguished individuals with a passion for closing the justice gap. Rebecca Sandefur is the director of the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University and a faculty fellow at the American Bar Foundation, where she founded and leads the Access to Justice Research Initiative. Matthew Burnett is the senior program officer at that initiative. And the other two are former directors of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Cecilia Muñoz and John Bridgeland.

These co-founders brought aboard Nikole Nelson, until recently the executive director of ALSC, as the founding CEO for Frontline Justice. During her twenty-five years in the field, she helped launch the medical-legal partnership Partnering for Native Health, which won the 2019 World Justice Challenge. “The work I did at ALSC to provide access to justice for communities and within the healthcare system led me to this position,” says Nelson of Frontline Justice. “I went through this process when we started developing the community justice worker program in Alaska.”

What has proven to be successful in Alaska is now being implemented around the country. “The movement is growing exponentially,” says Nelson. “We have twenty-plus states right now that are considering community justice worker programs. And I love that Alaska was number one in this movement!”

Concepts for improving access to justice are feeding back into Alaska from around the country, especially thanks to multi-state firms like DWT.

For instance, in addition to its pro bono work, DWT helps women through a unique initiative called Project W. Founded by Lynn Loacker, a partner in the New York City office of DWT, Project W focuses on closing the gender gap in the corporate world.

“Project W started with the goal of creating an initiative to help women business owners succeed by addressing the struggles women face in terms of getting investments and capital to build a successful business,” Tavella explains. “It eventually spread across the nation and often varies based on the location.”

Elizabeth Hodes, DWT’s Anchorage Partner in Charge, teamed up with Tavella to promote Project W in Alaska, empowering women to work together to advance the state.

“We’re seeing more women in the boardroom these days working with a lot of different industries,” Tavella shares. “Our Project W initiative spurred from the thought that it would be so great to get all of these women in a room to work together, continuing to advance Alaska into more economic prosperity and into a place people will want to stay. There are a number of Anchorage women’s groups that are industry-specific, and some focus more on professional development; we wanted this to be more of a space where women can come together and network with specific programming aimed at helping Alaska.”

From the boardroom to the Bush, legal services professionals and volunteers are answering the call, to help ensure that Alaskans have justice for all.