Building client agency: strengthening the voice of low-income communities in the legal system
The Right Question Institute’s Legal Empowerment Program teaches methods to help people who are navigating the legal system have a voice in decisions that affect them — building people’s skills and confidence so they can advocate for themselves more effectively.
For people facing eviction, fighting for benefits, experiencing domestic violence, or dealing with other legal issues, the legal system can seem disempowering and disorienting.
Read our article in Social Innovations Journal to learn about a legal services social worker who used RQI’s methods to support a young mother living in a homeless shelter.
People who learn the Right Question Strategy feel a new sense of agency and self-efficacy during interactions with their attorneys, and they learn skills to advocate for themselves in the legal system and beyond.
We work with legal professionals and advocates — from attorneys to court navigators, community justice volunteers, and others — who learn how to use the Right Question Strategy with their clients in low-income communities.
In people’s own words
You can help
Your financial support is worth twice as much
A very generous donor — inspired by our legal empowerment work — has offered to match, dollar-for-dollar, every donation (up to a total of $50,000). That means your donation will be worth twice as much toward helping people navigate our legal system and participate in decisions that affect them.
Your financial support, no matter the amount, will double in value when you make a donation toward our legal empowerment work.