Open Door Legal

We believe that legal representation is the most effective way to address poverty in America. In fact, we’ve calculated a 1:21 social return on investment. This means that for every $1 we spent, we generated $21 in immediate and long-term financial benefits. This social ROI is likely higher than any other anti-poverty intervention, and the upstream nature of our work means that we are able to create real, lasting change.

Take the story of Claudia, one of our early clients. For 8 years, she was trapped in an abusive relationship. Ample medical documentation proved she was a victim, but when her husband called the police to report that she had hit him, they didn’t believe any of it. They arrested her. She spent five days in jail and when she was released, she was given a restraining order that prevented her from going home, seeing her children, even getting a change of clothes. She ended up homeless. Claudia visited agency after agency, asking for help on a trial that would let her go back home. She was turned away from five agencies before she found Open Door Legal.

Our attorneys represented Claudia at a three-day trial, got her back into her home, and got her abuser out. We also helped her get child support and, most importantly, full custody of her children. We even helped her get a divorce, despite the fact that her abusive husband tried to hide the community assets. Claudia has been able to stay stably housed ever since. She has re-entered the workforce and even completed her citizenship. And all of this cost a tiny fraction of what homeless services or subsidized housing would have.

To learn more about our solution and hear more of Claudia’s story, visit https://opendoorlegal.org/

A good analogy for our work is a general hospital. General hospitals ensure everyone can get medical care, for any kind of medical issue, within a defined area. We’re creating the same thing, but instead of addressing health care, we’re addressing injustice. In the system we’ve built, we’ve been able to successfully represent low-income neighbors in over 35 areas of law.

In fact, deterrence theory strongly supports the idea that this strategy is the one that’s most effective at changing the behavior of bad actors. Research shows that bad actors who would violate the law--be it nefarious banks, landlords, or domestic abusers--are far more responsive to the likelihood of punishment than the severity of punishment. This means that universal access has a systemic effect on how our neighbors are treated - far more than any other strategy attempting to protect the rights of low-income people of color. Ultimately, we envision a future where all preventable injustice is stopped.

We’ve assembled a best-in-class team to pioneer universal access. Our program staff have proven capable of handling more cases, in more areas of law, with the same or better outcomes, per person, than many experts thought was possible. Part of our success is due to the development of our own case management application, which dramatically streamlines our workflows and improves our efficiency.

We opened for services in 2013 and our first year budget was a mere $35,000 - enough to pay our founders minimum wage as they handled hundreds of cases. Within 8 years we have grown our budget 100x and become a recognized innovator in our field.

Our service area now encompasses 40% of the low-income population in San Francisco. And within the next three years, we hope to finish scaling city-wide, make San Francisco the first city in the country with universal access to legal help, and become a model for national replication. We plan to usher in the day when the law truly belongs to all of us.