Integrated Advocacy: Community Justice Work, Litigation, & Legislation
Learn how community engagement, policy advocacy and litigation intersect in pursuit of advocacy goals as exemplified by experiences in Alaska and Ohio, fueling opportunity for impact and community justice worker models.
- ...describe the componants and general principles of integrated advocacy as a tool for change.
- ...appreciate how integrated advocacy strategies acheived demonstrable change in two different states (Alaska and Ohio) around two different areas of law (SNAP administration and debt-related driver's license suspensions).
- ...build an integrated advocacy initiative in their own service area.
Nikole Nelson, JD
CEO
Frontline Justice
Nikole Nelson is the founding CEO of Frontline Justice. Prior to joining Frontline Justice Nikole was the Executive Director of Alaska Legal Services Corporation, Alaska’s only statewide provider of free civil aid. During her 25 years in the field, she worked to build community-led, people-centered justice models and to expand the scope of who can provide legal help including a groundbreaking launch of Partnering for Native Health, a Medical-Legal Partnership involving non-lawyer justice workers that won the 2019 World Justice Challenge. She also spearheaded reforming restrictions on unauthorized practice of law for justice workers in Alaska; these reforms were approved in 2022 by both the Alaska Supreme Court and State Bar Board of Governors. Nikole is a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense (SCLAID) and is a member of the Legal Services Corporation’s Rural Justice Task Force.
Michael Russell, JD
Senior Attorney
The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
Mike Russell is a Senior Attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland (LASC) where he represents community groups, nonprofits, and cooperatives as part of Legal Aid’s Community Engagement Practice Group. Mike has worked for legal aid organizations all his career . He started at Alaska Legal Services in Anchorage, AK, before joining Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in El Paso, TX, where he represented clients in housing, consumer, and employment cases. He's been with the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland since 2017. He contributed to Legal Aid's Road to Nowhere report, published in 2022, which analyzed five years of debt-related drivers license data from Ohio's Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Mike earned his undergraduate degree from the Gallatin School at New York University and his law degree from UC Law San Francisco.
Anne Helms
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