Our Mission
Access to Justice
The Higher Law Firm is an estate planning law firm in Chicago, and access to justice is part of who we are. We believe people deserve to understand the legal system that shapes their lives, and to find their way through it.
Knowledge → Agency → Opportunity
WHY IT MATTERS
Why Access to Legal Knowledge Matters
Law is a system through which power, property, opportunity, and rights move. Yet many people experience it as something that happens to them, not something they understand and can take part in. People cannot meaningfully participate in systems they cannot understand or reach, so access to legal knowledge is where access to justice begins.
Clarity is power.
The Justice Gap
The Distance Between Need and Help
The justice gap is the difference between the legal problems people face and the legal help they can actually get. The numbers below come from the most recent national study of low-income Americans.
92%
of the serious civil legal problems faced by low-income Americans got no legal help, or not enough.
Source: Legal Services Corporation, The Justice Gap (2022)
3 in 4 (74%)
low-income households had at least one civil legal problem in the past year.
Source: Legal Services Corporation, The Justice Gap (2022)
1 in 4 (25%)
of the civil legal problems that affected low-income Americans in a major way were taken to a lawyer or legal help at all.
Source: Legal Services Corporation, The Justice Gap (2022)
The most common problems involve consumer issues, health care, housing, and income. These are national figures, and we’re working to understand what they mean for Chicago and Cook County.
Our Response
What We’re Doing About It
The Civil Justice Access Initiative (CJAI) is a Higher Law program, supported in part by grant funding, that works to put legal knowledge in the hands of people in our community, starting here in Chicago.
01
Listen
We start by hearing what people are asking and where they get stuck.
02
Build
We build plain-language resources, forums, and tools around those questions.
03
Deliver
We bring them to people through events, workshops, and guides.
04
Connect
We help people find what comes next, whether that’s a resource, a program, or a partner organization.
05
Learn
We look at what worked, learn from it, and listen again.
We look at what worked, learn from it, and listen again.
Clarity Is Power
Understanding the system is the first step toward using it.
Attorney advertising. The information on this website is general information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm does not create an attorney-client relationship.
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