Housing Stability Legal Advocates

Attorney Mentors:

Innovation for Justice (i4J) at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law is seeking attorney mentors for our Spring 2024 Cohort of Housing Stability Legal Advocates (HSLA). HSLAs are advocates embedded at community-based organizations who have authorization from the Arizona Supreme Court to give limited-scope legal advice about housing-related civil legal problems to community members experiencing housing instability. HSLAs are trained by Innovation for Justice, certified by the Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts, and will be supported by a network of attorney mentors.

Attorney mentors will be assigned to a small cohort of HSLAs and will provide guidance to those advocates when they begin delivering services to the community. As set forth by the Arizona Supreme Court, HSLAs have a limited scope of service and must adhere to a Code of Conduct that mirrors the ethical obligations of licensed Arizona attorneys. HSLAs are thoroughly trained on how to identify when an issue is within their scope of service but that presents a question they are unsure about. It is at this point that HSLAs contact their attorney mentor by phone or email to get clarification and guidance on how to proceed. Likewise, HSLAs are trained on how to make attorney referrals when a matter is beyond their authorization. Note: Attorney mentors do not receive these referrals and HSLAs follow the referral protocol of their respective community-based organization.

In general, attorney mentors can expect to spend 2-3 hours per month consulting with their assigned HSLAs via email and/or phone call. This attorney mentorship model has been applied successfully on other i4J advocate projects and attorney mentors report that mentorship is a valuable and rewarding community service activity. i4J is currently seeking attorney mentors with experience in family law and domestic violence dynamics.

Attorney mentors would be responsible for:

•  Attending 1-2 hours of virtual training in Spring 2024

• Being familiar with the HLSA curriculum (a copy of the curriculum will be provided to attorney mentors as a resource)

• Being available outside of meeting times to answer questions that may arise while HSLAs are providing services

• Virtual check-ins with the i4J team a few times a year to provide feedback on the attorney mentor experience and any suggested changes to the HSLA curriculum based on the attorney mentor’s experiences working w HSLAs

Attorney mentors will receive:

• Recognition from Arizona Law and Innovation for Justice

• A monetary appreciation gift after one year of volunteering

Please email Rachel Crisler at rachel@innovation4justice.org if you are interested or have any questions about this opportunity!

Housing instability disproportionately impacts lower-income community members, the vast majority of whom are renters. For lower-income community members, housing is simply unaffordable. In Arizona and Utah, there are about 30 affordable housing units for every 100 extremely lower-income renter households, and more than 70% of extremely low-income renters are paying more than half of their income on rent. For severely rent-burdened households, one emergency or unexpected expense could result in eviction, displacement, and homelessness.

Tenants confronted with an inability to pay rent lack the resources and capacity to navigate and secure siloed social and legal services needed to maintain housing stability. i4J's Housing Stability Legal Advocates (HSLAs) are community members from the non-profit social service sector who obtain HSLA certification in the course and scope of their social service work, and embed upstream, trauma-informed, limited-scope legal advice related to housing issues in the delivery of their social services.

HSLAs would:

1. Provide limited-scope legal advice in the course and scope of their social service work. For example, a caseworker at a community action agency or a human services campus who assists tenants in securing food and/or applying for utility and rent assistance would also be able to identify tenants that are at risk of eviction and provide legal advice to reduce housing instability risk;

2. Not charge for their services–HSLA legal advice would be provided in the course and scope of free social services, not as a free-standing legal service; and

3. Be limited to providing HSLA services while employed by or volunteering with a non-profit social service organization - HSLAs would not be authorized to set up free-standing, for-profit legal service organizations.

View Project Brief: Leveraging regulatory reform in AZ and UT to advance housing stability

Read Full Report: Housing Stability Legal Advocate Initiative: 2023 Update

Arizona Supreme Court Administrative Order 2024-34 (Replacing Administrative Order No. 2023-19, issued January 2023)

Supreme Court of Utah Standing Order No. 16 published March 2023

Innovation for Justice (i4J) is a legal innovation law housed at both Arizona Law and University of Utah David Eccles School of Business. i4J is uniquely positioned in the two states that have opened the door to legal regulatory reform, and is the only lab to design pilot projects that leverage regulatory reform to legally empower underrepresented populations.

In 2019, i4J designed and launched the Licensed Legal Advocate (LLA) pilot–the first project in the U.S. to adapt unauthorized practice of law (UPL) restrictions to permit nonlawyer community-based advocates to give legal advice regarding family law issues. As of April 2021, the LLA pilot has funded and launched: LLAs are delivering trauma-informed, limited scope legal advice and assistance to meet the legal needs of DV survivors, including child support, spousal maintenance, and fair and equitable property and debt divisions .

In 2020, i4J received approval from the Utah State Court’s Office of Legal Innovation to pilot two Medical Debt Legal Advocate (MLDA) initiatives that will connect Utahns experiencing medical debt with non-lawyer advocates in the non-profit, social service sector. The MDLA pilots are the first projects in the U.S. to adapt UPL restrictions to permit non-lawyer community-based advocates to provide limited-scope legal advice regarding medical debt. As of December, 2021 the MDLA pilots are funded and MDLA services will begin in 2022.

The HSLA Initiative builds off of the momentum of the LLA and MDLA pilots, and amplifies the voices of over 160 community members in Arizona and Utah collectively advocating for innovative approaches to keeping people housed. i4J is currently engaged in conversations with Arizona and Utah court stakeholders to determine the best way to implement the Initiative in both states.

As the legal profession struggles to expand access for populations that cannot afford legal services under traditional models, whether a professional with legal training but not a J.D. should be permitted to give legal advice is an issue at the forefront of access to justice decision-making across the country. This Initiative is positioned to be a critical, groundbreaking step in the effort to significantly restructure legal regulation and innovate the delivery of legal services to improve access to justice, human services, and housing stability. The research findings generated by this Initiative has the potential to change the delivery of civil legal services for low-income populations nationwide, by creating a new and sustainable tier of civil legal service providers for the non-profit, civil legal aid, and social service communities.