The Arizona Supreme Court has created a new program to help expand access to legal assistance to vulnerable populations.
Justice Ann Scott Timmer signed the order creating the Legal Services Authorized Community Justice Worker Program. The people it hires aren’t lawyers, but they are trained to provide legal help on civil matters.
Timer says the program is specifically designed to provide assistance on consumer issues, debt relief, public benefits, unemployment and tenant-landlord disputes.
“By the time somebody gets to court on landlord-tenant, they're done. There's nothing really left to do, which is a problem. If you can get to somebody early to give you the advice or to negotiate something with the landlord or that kind of thing, you have an opportunity to avoid that kind of thing," Timmer said.
The program is designed to have these be people already embedded in their local communities who are likely to come into contact with people with unmet legal needs.
It starts, she said, with the fact that getting regular legal help is expensive.
"I don't blame the lawyers,'' Timmer said. "It's expensive to get the education, the overhead, all of these things.''
Those hired are also held to Arizona Supreme Court and State Bar of Arizona regulations.
