...building a legal infrastructure that is responsive, action-oriented, and collaborative in its support of organizers on the ground and Black folks everywhere.
PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES
Membership Network
L4BL’s Membership Network invites law students, legal workers, policy advocates, and lawyers to join a national community of movement lawyering practitioners intent on supporting local efforts from a place of expertise.
Members have access to the following benefits:
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In-depth political education and movement lawyering skill training sessions throughout the year, including online webinars, in-person workshops, training institutes, and CLE accreditation when available. These workshops and trainings address knowledge and skill gaps, are targeted, and consider previous experiences. These workshops and trainings also address what practitioners need to know to assist in emergent situations like mass protests and swift government intervention.
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Practice area support groups where L4BL provides workshops and panels, and cultivates strategic planning spaces for members working in the same area of law. The participants will heavily dictate the activities of the support groups. The intent is to promote co-learning and collaboration around the country in ways that enhance our ability to support movement.
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Affinity groups
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A digital community where they will be able to connect with other members from around the country, share resources, ask questions, organize support of movements, and advance professionally.
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Access to local action hubs where L4BL will support local members in creating programming, holding relationship-building events, and connecting the legal community to local movement.
Legal Community Workshops & Trainings
L4BL provides political education and movement lawyering skill trainings to interested law students, legal workers, policy advocates, and lawyers, as well as legal organizations. These workshops and training vary and include trainings like Movement Lawyering 101/201, Navigating Power Dynamics while Collaborating with Organizers, and Navigating the Freedom of Information Act. Additionally, we provide customized training to legal organizations navigating their work with and support of movements.
Partnerships Network
L4BL’s Partnerships Network invites Black organizers and Black-led organizations with direct ties to local Black communities to join a national network of those working for Black liberation. This network is intent on shaping law and policy and guiding the movement lawyering community's efforts and contributions to the field. Partners engage with our Membership Network for collaborative efforts, shared learning, and direct support.
Partners have access to the following benefits:
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In-depth legal and policy training sessions throughout the year, including online webinars, legal briefings, and strategy spaces
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Access to legal research and policy support including placement in our legal clinical cohort and development of resources and publications
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Prioritization with support requests including referrals, rapid response, coalition, and project support
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Access to resource repositories and trackers
Movement Community Workshops, Trainings, and Briefings
L4BL provides legal briefings, legal education, and skill-building trainings to interested movement organizers and organizations. The subjects are responsive to the articulated needs of movement organization partners and include Know Your Rights, Risks, and Power workshops and briefings on changes in law and policy, and how they affect organizing terrain. Additionally, we provide customized training on how to utilize movement lawyers and hold them accountable.
Communities of Learning and Practice
The Communities of Learning + Practice ("CLPs") provide an opportunity to build and organize with our partners around a shared strategic vision about a particular topic. The CLPs serve as containers for strategic, rigorous, and directed work and provide a flexible framework.
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All CLPs:
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Level-set and make room for collective learning
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Share updates from the field on the topic
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Set out a strategic vision and coordinate our efforts
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Provide a direct benefit to Black-led movement and/or Black communities
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Are temporary and project oriented
Internship Program
L4BL’s internship program seeks to expose law students to movement lawyering careers by working to place law students with movement legal organizations all across the country, and providing the interns with political education and movement lawyering skill training for the summer.
Clinical Cohort
L4BL’s Clinical Cohort program recruits law students from around the country and partners them with movement organizations needing legal and policy research support to further their organizing efforts on the ground. Law students have worked on issues related to reparations, community land trusts, drug decriminalization, family policing, police budgets, body autonomy, and community criminalization.
Freedom Labs
L4BL’s Freedom Labs are collaborative learning and strategic planning spaces coordinated to advance current local efforts to enact transformative social change. Our Regional Freedom Labs provide collaborative spaces on a regional level for movements in different locales to learn, connect, and strategize about a common campaign or issue, such as invest/divest campaigns, current government attacks or repression, or the need for long-term goal alignment. Our Local Freedom Labs provide collaborative spaces for movement and legal and policy advocates in the same city or state to develop local strategies and coordination to emergent issues and long-term organizing agendas.
The Practitioners’ Fellowship Program
L4BL’s Practitioners’ Fellowship Program places movement lawyers with movement organizations to provide direct support. During the program, L4BL invests heavily in the fellows through legal training and political education intensives, career and professional development, mentorship, and resources. The theme and scope of the Fellowship Program change each round in response to the expressed needs of our movement partners.
Technical Assistance
L4BL provides movement organizations with technical assistance such as legal research, policy research and drafting, training development support, popular education tool development, publication and collateral materials development, coalition leadership and management, brain trusts, connections, and resources.
Policy and Legal Coalition Leadership and Management
L4BL supports and contributes to the leadership of policy and legal coalitions striving to transform the law using a movement lawyering lens. We have staffed and supported multiple formations including the National Bailout Collective, M4BL’s Policy Table, M4BL’s Reparations Table, the People’s Coalition for Safety and Freedom seeking to repeal and replace the ‘94 crime bill, a coalition against family policing, and a coalition to secure reparations for the War on Drugs.
Publications, Webinars, and Trackers
L4BL has published over 120 political education and legal and policy training webinars, popular education tools, guides, toolkits, and trackers focused on intervening and transforming the law and people’s relationship to it. Additionally, our Lunch and Learn series offers lawyers and organizers an opportunity to engage in conversations and learn about relevant topics.
