California Access To Justice Commission’s 2022 Annual Report
2022 Annual Report
The California Access to Justice Commission is excited to release its 2022 Annual Report. Below, we’ve highlighted some of the ways the Access Commission broke new ground in 2022. Please read the full report to learn about more of our work.
With funding from the State Budget Act and The California Endowment, we made grants for the first time. Our State-funded Infrastructure and Innovation grants obtained $5,000,000 to strengthen legal aid nonprofits and start new forms of legal help for low-income Californians. Our Eviction Tsunami grant program used $750,000 to enable seven urban programs to partner with community organizations to reduce homelessness and mitigate its effects. This report provides detailed information about the immense good these grant programs did for people throughout California. We are deeply grateful to the State of California and to The California Endowment.
Following our policy paper, Legal Aid Recruitment, Retention, and Diversity, we designed a program for tax-exempt Loan Repayment Assistance Programs for legal aid lawyers and we provided a series of webinars on how to obtain Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Together, these new projects can help enable legal aid nonprofits to overcome critical economic barriers to hiring new lawyers and retaining many who will stay in legal aid if they can afford it.
With support from the State Bar of California, we have developed social media messages to overcome the Knowledge Gap – when people don’t know they have legal rights and remedies, or don’t know where to find help – on access to medical care and coverage. We are testing this new communication channel with Californians in all income categories and different locations.
We also conducted a planning process in 2022 that has resulted in a new Strategic Plan for 2023 – 2025. It will focus our work and enhance our impact in lowering barriers to access in the courts and making broader use of E-Justice to help Californians with legal problems – among other priorities.