Pioneering a New Legal System Aimed at Ending Poverty

While Adrian Tirtanadi was working in community development, he came upon an idea: If everyone could access legal help, poverty would be dramatically reduced. 

“We as a society don’t guarantee civil legal help to people who are low income, unlike every other developed country,” says Tirtanadi, executive director and co-founder of Open Door Legal. “Low-income communities of color are routinely stripped of assets.”

Across the U.S., low-income residents are often victims of wage theft, domestic abuse, and wrongful foreclosure, but don’t have the finances to challenge these injustices. In California, studies have found that foreclosures alone strip about $2.4 billion in wealth from low-income communities every year.

Realizing this, Tirtanadi decided to go to law school where he founded Open Door Legal. Today, the nonprofit employs 42 full-time staff who work in San Francisco’s Bayview, Excelsior, and Western Addition neighborhoods, connecting with residents in need where they live.

But Open Door Legal’s vision is to do more than provide help; it wants to change the legal system writ large.

“We’re pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to legal help,” Tirtanadi says. “What we are trying to build is similar to the general hospital for the medical system. It’s the provider of last resort to make sure everyone gets medical care. A similar institution does not exist in access to civil justice.”

Many of Open Door Legal’s clients come to them via word of mouth. One San Francisco resident, Claudia, found the group after she had been thrown out of her house by her abusive husband. She was living on the street separated from her two children. With the nonprofit’s help, Claudia was able to take back full ownership of her house, get sole custody, child support, and a divorce. 

Tirtanadi says the cost to the nonprofit to represent her was $3,000, significantly less than it would have cost taxpayers for child protective services, homeless shelters, or emergency room visits if Open Door had not intervened. 

Despite this victory, Tirtanadi says the need for free legal help continues to be overwhelming. Open Door Legal has worked with a resident in every fifth home in Bayview alone. About 95 percent of Open Door Legal’s clients are people of color and 75% earn less than $30,000 a year. 

“What people don’t realize is the scale of the need. It’s like building the first well in the desert,” Tirtanadi says.