Lloyd Mungul and his 9-year-old son sat quietly in a D.C. Superior Court room on a recent Friday, waiting for a hearing about a threatened eviction from their apartment. When the clerk called Mungul's name, he and his son came forward and sat at a table before D.C. Superior Court Magistrate Judge Sherry Trafford.

Appearing on one of the video panels on a large TV screen perched to the left of the judge was an attorney representing Mungul's landlord. But Mungul and his son were on their own with no lawyer beside them.

Mungul raised a defense to the landlord's request for a protective order, which landlords can request to require tenant-defendants to pay their monthly rent to the court as the case is adjudicated.

Judge Trafford said she would schedule a hearing, where Mungul would have to rebut the protective order, and a mediation hearing, which was also requested by his landlord's attorney.

In advocating for himself and his son without the guidance of an attorney, Mungul is like many D.C. residents who represent themselves as they face civil legal matters. Between 75% and 97% of civil cases in the district's local courts involve at least one unrepresented party, according to a July 2025 report from the D.C. Courts' Civil Legal Regulatory Reform Task Force.

Now, a court program launching in the district next month aims to empower nonattorneys to provide some legal assistance to more people like Mungul who face a civil legal issue without an attorney.

In facing this matter without an attorney, Mungul said he's trying to manage several moving parts.

"There are so many different entities that come into play that you have to manage as a human being [and] as an individual," he said. "You have to be an adult. You have to be ready to do the adult thing, or you're going to fail."

"You have to stay humble and keep doing the things that are necessary and righteous so that you can get to stable housing [and] so that you can get the things you need and even accomplish more," Mungul added. "They don't make it super easy or super difficult. They make it manageable, and I think people need to do their best and hope for the best."

Addressing Legal Needs in DC

In an order in February, D.C.'s Court of Appeals — the district's highest court — created the Community Justice Worker program, where nonattorneys can provide some legal services under the supervision of a lawyer. The rule, which goes into effect on April 6, allows legal service providers to train and manage Community Justice Workers.

In the district, legal service providers that supply free or low-cost services can apply to the new program, according to the court's order.

Nancy Drane, executive director of the D.C. Access to Justice Commission — who served on the task force — told Law360 that the CJW program is a game-changer for delivering legal services.

"We often in the legal community think about more lawyers or more pro bono attorneys, and those are really effective solutions, but they're looking at traditional tools and we're saying, 'Look, there are people beyond the legal profession who can help, and how do we better partner with them?'" she said.

Drane said people she's talked to about the district's CJW program are thinking about practical ways to enhance existing services.

"That's another, I think, beauty of the Community Justice Worker model," Drane said. "We're not talking about creating mini-lawyers that could provide a wide range of legal help. We're talking about identifying a legal procedure or a legal need that people have and figuring out who can help us provide help to address that particular need or that particular procedure."

Karen A. Newton Cole, executive director of the Neighborhood Legal Services Program, told Law360 that she thinks this model will help it reach more people in the district who need civil legal services.

"We locate ourselves in the poorest wards in the District of Columbia, and that's not by accident," she said. "It is, 'How can we reach the greatest number of people?' And so we've always had a neighborhood law office model. That's always been that if you situate yourself in the communities in which your clients live, then your clients have access to you and thereby can get access to justice."

Newton Cole said the NLSP plans on applying to the court so it can adopt a CJW model. In early March, she said they were still planning details.

"My desire is rather than hire on staff — everything takes funding — what I want to do is identify people who are already out there, and indeed I'm exploring a couple of partnerships on that front, because you're not starting from scratch then," she said. "You're starting with people who have relationships, and that means they hit the ground running and the effect — what you see from it — is immediate."

Newton Cole said the Community Justice Program aims to connect people who have ties to the community to serve as CJWs.

"The thought behind all of this is if you take people who exist in the communities, who have always existed in the communities, that they have a familiarity with the residents with that community and they will be more trusted in carrying out this sort of mission," she said. "But the thing of it is, though, that in order for that to exist, you have to have people who are trained in the law or in those areas that they are going to provide assistance in."

Newton Cole said the Legal Services model focuses on supporting people in housing, economic security and family law matters.

"One without the other poses great risk," she said.

Newton Cole said the NLSP is seeking a third office. But there's a limit to how many offices it can afford to keep running, and she noted that the NLSP had 10 offices in the 1970s.

In addition to having two offices, the organization offers clinics in libraries around the district to reach as many people as possible, among other ways, Newton Cole said.

"Despite that effort, there's a large number of people who don't receive our services," she said.

National Model Reaches DC

The district is the latest jurisdiction to adopt this CJW model.

Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii and Utah also have CJW models, according to a July 2025 report from the Civil Legal Regulatory Reform Task Force.

For example, the Alaska Legal Services Corp. started its CJW program, inspired by the tribal community health aid model in 2019, according to its website.

The ALSC also started a Community Justice Worker Resource Center in 2023 to support the program in the state and connect with partners in other states to expand the CJW model.

Drane said that Alaska's CJW program has helped people secure SNAP benefits after being denied.

"That's a good example where they took a particular need and said this is something that a lot of Alaska residents are dealing with, we lawyers don't have the capacity to help all the people that are experiencing this, and we don't really need lawyers," she said. "This is something we can train other people to do."

Seven jurisdictions have a legal limited practioner program allowing nonattorneys to provide civil legal services: Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Washington's program is currently not allowing further legal limited practioners to join, but it allowed existing legal limited practioners to continue.

Ronald S. Flagg, Legal Services Corp.'s president, told Law360 that programs like CJW and legal limited practioners are spreading because courts across the country are seeing a justice gap where people face civil cases without an attorney.

"Our country's legal system is complex," he said. "It was designed by lawyers for lawyers, but most people walking into civil court don't have a lawyer, most people dealing with federal or state administrative agencies don't have a lawyer, and the gap is what innovations like Community Justice Workers is trying to address. That gap exists in every jurisdiction."

LSC, created by federal law in 1974, assists low-income individuals and families with civil matters, according to its website. It says it reaches every zip code in the U.S. with 130 legal aid programs, including the NLSP, and it has 900 offices.

Flagg said that people who are facing eviction, losing custody of their child or having their benefits withheld by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs don't have a right to an attorney like a criminal defendant's right to an attorney.

"Unfortunately, in the cases that I've just described, you're not entitled to a lawyer and that's where legal aid or Community Justice Workers or the combination of the two together come in," he said.

Showing 'Fortitude and Discipline'

During the hearing before Judge Trafford, Mungul said he's looking to move, because he and his son were assaulted in the apartment. He said that the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center is assisting in finding a new apartment for them.

Mungul told the judge that he hadn't reached out for legal aid, but he accepted a flier with the program's information from the court clerk.

"I'll be proactive," he told the judge. "I appreciate it."

Mungul and his son moved to D.C. after facing domestic violence in South Carolina, he later told Law360. He said he was placed in an apartment with the help of a district program, but it didn't provide a plan for leaving the apartment after that program's assistance ended.

Without a support system, Mungul doesn't have anyone to care for his son, and he continues to deal with post-traumatic stress syndrome symptoms, he said.

"They just got me housing, so just getting someone housing alone isn't enough," he said. "You need someone to say, 'OK, he needs a counselor and he needs professional help. It's my fortitude and discipline and matter-of-factness that's gotten me through this far. [My son] wouldn't be clean. He wouldn't be dressed. He wouldn't be who he is if I didn't care, because they allow you to crash and burn."

Mungul said he doesn't feel like he can pursue higher education because he doesn't have a support system to help him care for his child.

"I think they just need personal liaisons — more people with caseloads to say, 'OK, this is the man. Let me deal with him. Let me see what he needs,'" he said.

--Editing by Adam LoBelia.