Nonlawyers who receive training will now be able to help with civil matters in D.C., as part of a new order issued by D.C. Courts earlier this month that expands access to legal assistance for people without an attorney.

The rule, scheduled to take effect in April, creates a framework for Community Justice Workers, or nonlawyers who are supervised and trained to offer limited legal assistance through a partnership with legal services organizations.

The step comes after a yearslong assessment into the possible role for nonlawyers in offering certain types of legal help to D.C. residents.

As of 2017, 97% of plaintiffs in paternity and child support cases, and in small estate matters, represent themselves in D.C. Superior Court, according to a 2025 report from the District of Columbia Courts Civil Legal Regulatory Reform Task Force.

“We are facing an extraordinary need,” said Nancy Drane, executive director of D.C.’s Access to Justice Commission. “There are thousands of District residents who are not getting the legal help they need.”

The Community Justice Worker model could be compared to seeing a nurse practitioner in a doctor’s office. Ariel Levinson-Waldman, director of nonprofit Tzedek D.C., said someone who goes through a supervised program would be able to provide help, “just like your nurse practitioner does.”

Tzedek D.C. offers pro bono legal help and financial counseling. But, Levinson-Waldman said, there are thousands of people who are eligible for their services and the work of similar providers, and only a select few are available to help.

“Many of the court’s high-volume dockets are cases where the individual D.C. resident is not getting any help,” he said. “This effort, we saw that as a way to change that, to bring more people into opportunities for access to justice, to bring more resources to the problem.”

Whether it be divorce, custody cases, small claims or child support cases, the stakes are high.

Without an attorney or someone who can help in some way, cases often go “less well than it would have. It impacts their family, their future, their finances, sometimes access to the custody of their children,” Levinson-Waldman said.

In some instances, Drane said people experiencing issues such as eviction or family conflict navigate cases without help from a lawyer because legal help is expensive. Free legal service groups have limited capacities and budgets.

Under the Community Justice Worker model, organizations could either train their own staffs to help or partner with community nonprofits.

“What this would mean, practically, is that we will have more helpers in the community who are trained and authorized to provide certain types of legal help,” Drane said. “The real beauty of Community Justice Workers is that they receive what I would call ‘bite-sized training for bite-sized tasks.’”

Karen Dale, market president and CEO of AmeriHealth Caritas District of Columbia, said people “need assistance, they need support. Having someone by your side to help you navigate with a level of specificity, get you to the right resources in a timely way, should be able to help less lives and families and communities get derailed.”

The approach, Levinson-Waldman said, will provide a formal way for “public spirited” volunteers to help their neighbors.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (7News) — The D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety is holding a performance oversight hearing on several agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Nearly 120 people are signed up to testify at Wednesday’s hearing, the bulk of which for MPD. The committee will hear from representatives and public witnesses for the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and the Office of Police Complaints before MPD public witnesses. MPD Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll is scheduled to testify last.

“Today’s oversight hearing really continues our efforts over the last several months to work with MPD and get a better understanding of how things have changed since the increase of federal presence in our city since August,” Committee Chairwoman Brooke Pinto told 7News ahead of the hearing.

“There is always an element of the local government working with the federal government and things like FBI and ATF to get illegal guns off the street, to pursue drug cases — that level of coordination happens in any administration,” she continued. “But what we’ve seen this year is different: of National Guard troops coming to the city from all over the country, of HSI agents handling immigration enforcement, really threatening and terrorizing many of our immigrant communities who are feeling unsafe and unsure to go about their daily lives. And while we don’t have oversight over those federal agencies, it’s really important that our local Metropolitan Police Department is following our laws and is making sure that they are pursuing the public interest and protecting the public.”

In December, Pinto’s committee held a hearing on public safety in the District. Overwhelmingly, people who testified in the 12-hour hearing brought up concerns with the ongoing National Guard presence and the federal law enforcement surge, as well as the Metropolitan Police Department’s increased cooperation with immigration enforcement.

Two weeks later, Pinto led the council to send a letter to the interim chief requesting clarification about the extent of coordination amid the federal surge and under the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which was created by a March presidential executive order last year. Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll responded, stating MPD is not working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but that “[M]any of the federal agencies MPD is working with during this period of enhanced federal partnership, and with which MPD has long-established relationships, now have authority to conduct civil immigration enforcement.”

The interim chief’s letter did not include the requested arrest numbers from joint patrols with federal agents, so Pinto’s committee repeated a request for those answers ahead of the oversight hearing.

In a 246-page letter sent Monday, MPD states the department does not track federal arrests made in joint patrols. The letter goes on to list federal agencies that participated in joint patrols between August and December that do not have an active cooperative agreement with MPD, or that did not have an active cooperative agreement at the time of the joint patrols, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations.

“When it came to the federal questions, many of their responses were that they don’t track this information, and so one of the things I’m trying to get at today is: how can we track this information we should have access to know who is coming to roll call, where are officers being deployed?” Pinto told 7News. “We have the best police department in the country. Our officers go through robust training. We have some of the highest standards in the country, and that should be maintained and honored. And when we have these other agents here from other parts of the country or other agencies that aren’t accustomed to our practices and rules, that creates a challenge. And so that is really front of mind today for me to talk to MPD about.”