Why Matching?
One of the major challenges in accessing or providing legal services for environmental organizations is the complexity of environmental issues; environmental and environmental justice organizations often have disproportionate difficulty in obtaining adequate legal representation and resources.
For organizations, especially those with smaller (or non-existent!) budgets, it can be difficult to identify what kinds of information need to be collected, what the legal issues are, where to go to for help, and how to pay (according to the results of a recent survey, expense was the #1 identified reason for not getting legal help). For legal service providers, it can be difficult to find the time and resources to help groups investigate and identify issues. Law for the Environmental Grassroots (LEG) want to help make it easier for both sides by providing bridge-building between the two.
LEG aims to help match both organizations and legal service providers with each other. It does not want to duplicate efforts or compete with existing organizations. Rather, it aims to make it easier for organizations to identify their legal needs and be matched with an appropriate and existing legal resource, and to make it easier for legal service providers to refer clients to each other. Below is a template of how the process would work. Please note: this matching service is in beta; LEG will initially work with existing partners to troubleshoot the process.
The LEG Process |
Client-side
|
Legal Service Side There are two ways of becoming involved in the matching process: (A): To refer projects/clients
(B) To receive projects/clients
|
Forms & Information – Potential Clients |
Forms & Information – Legal Service Providers |
General Forms & Information |