OpenAI Foundation Grant Expands Access to Legal Help

NEW YORK, NY — Scale Justice, a national non-profit focused on expanding access to justice through technology, has received a $450,000 unrestricted grant from the OpenAI Foundation’s 2026 People-First AI Fund to advance its work helping people navigate legal and solve challenges.

“Our mission is to make the law work for all,” said Zach Zarnow, Executive Director of Scale Justice. “This funding from OpenAI will help us reach more people with trusted legal information and practical tools, enabling individuals and families to navigate legal issues that affect their homes, finances, and futures.”

Scale Justice reaches more than 8 million people annually, including over 1.2 million New Yorkers. This grant will accelerate its efforts to build digital tools and partnerships that expand access to affordable, accessible legal help for people facing challenges that affect their families, homes, safety, and economic security. Through people-centered technology designed around community needs, Scale Justice will expand access to free, trustworthy legal information and self-help resources. The investment will help ensure that more people can find clear, accurate, and multilingual legal help when they need it most, while also strengthening the capacity of more than 300 partner organizations that rely on Scale Justice’s tools to reach and represent those in need.

The Fund awarded $50 million to 163 organizations, giving recipients flexibility to explore how AI can strengthen their work with the people and communities they serve. Learn more about the Fund and this year’s grantees in the announcement.

About Scale Justice

Scale Justice is a leading nonprofit access-to-justice innovator dedicated to making the law work for all. With a 27-year track record of impact, Scale Justice creates digital tools and partnerships that help millions of people navigate the law, access justice, and live more secure lives. In 2025, Scale Justice reached more than 8 million people with essential legal rights resources, self-advocacy support, and referrals to trusted legal help, and supported over 300 legal aid programs, courts, and community-based organizations in delivering critical legal help in local communities.

Media Contact:
ScaleJustice@InfiniteGlobal.com

Right now across America, millions of people are navigating sweeping changes and uncertainty about their daily needs and futures: whether they can make ends meet, pay rent, feed their families, or afford health care. Others are facing profound uncertainty about their safety and ability to remain with their families and communities.

Many of these individuals urgently need legal help to understand their rights and options, and to know where to turn for trusted information and support.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what we’ve been working on in recent months to ensure that trusted legal information, tools, and pathways to help are available to everyone, regardless of income, language, or location:

  • Expanding trusted legal support through LawHelp – Our LawHelp Network serves more than 8 million people each year. Later this fall in New York, we’re launching a next-generation LawHelpNY platform with a language justice focus, expanding access to clear, accurate, and multilingual legal information that help-seekers can trust. Alongside this work, we’re partnering with organizations nationwide to bring the new LawHelp to more communities in the coming months, making it easier for people to find legal help and equipping legal aid partners with tools built for the future of digital justice.
  • Supporting Immigrant Communities – With support from national foundations, we’re bringing together several of our most widely used immigration legal information resources into a single, integrated platform, creating a simpler experience for immigrant families and the organizations that serve them. We also recently marked Citizenship Day and, through our Citizenshipworks program, are working with the New Americans Campaign to defend the path to citizenship and ensure Lawful Permanent Residents have the support they need on this journey.
  • Making Courts More Accessible – Our LawHelp Interactive program continues to help more than 20,000 people each month who are navigating the court system on their own complete self-help forms more easily, safely, and securely.  And we’re partnering with courts and justice allies to develop new innovations that make the justice system easier to navigate and more accessible for all. In addition, we recently launched a partnership with the National Association for Court Management to help courts adopt user-centered approaches that bring meaningful access to justice within reach for more communities.
  • Advocating for a More Accessible Justice System – Beyond our programs, we continue to lend our voice to critical reforms, including efforts to advance a Community Justice Worker (CJW) model in California, that expand access to community-centered legal help and make our civil justice system fairer, more empathetic, and more accessible to everyone.

    Through this work, and with your support, we’re building a future where the law belongs to all. Thank you for joining us on this mission and please consider making a gift today to accelerate it.

    For those who are able, a monthly contribution provides especially powerful support, helping us respond to urgent needs, invest in innovation, and sustain the long-term work of making justice accessible to all.

NEW YORK, NY — September 17, 2026 — Scale Justice, a national nonprofit and leading voice in legal innovation and technology, today announced the addition of Joe Stephens, Director of Legal Solutions at Steno and Clinical Lecturer at Texas Tech University School of Law, to its Board of Directors. Joe brings deep experience at the intersection of law, artificial intelligence, and access to justice.

“This strategic appointment reflects our ongoing commitment to leveraging technological innovation and frontline legal expertise to inform our programming,” said Zach Zarnow, Executive Director of Scale Justice. “Joe contributes a unique perspective shaped by his work in public defense and legal services, as well as experience working with emerging technology to increase access to justice. His experience will help guide Scale Justice as we continue to expand our impact.”

Joe leverages his background in public defense at legal technology company Steno, where he helps ensure legal technology solutions are informed by the practical needs of the communities they serve. He also serves as Chief Public Defender of the Caprock Regional Defender Office, where he mentors law students through the practice of criminal defense in the nation’s first full-time public defender office in the United States housed inside a law school.

“As emerging technology continues to reshape what is possible in the legal sector, Joe’s experience will help us accelerate our mission of bridging gaps in our legal system and bringing the power of the law to all,” said Michael Hertz, Board Chair. “His invaluable insight across the legal, technology, and access to justice sectors makes him ideally suited to identify the most pressing challenges facing the legal sector and address them head on.”

Following Michael Hertz’s election as Board Chair in June, Joe’s appointment further deepens the experience and leadership guiding the organization’s efforts to expand access to justice through innovative solutions. In addition to the expanding board, the organization continues to grow its impact through new programs and partnerships, including:

  •  A partnership with the National Association for Court Management to deliver specialized educational content to court management professionals nationwide
  • The December launch of Reclamo AI, the multilingual digital assistant that helps low-wage and immigrant workers prevent, assess, and document workplace violations

“I am thrilled to join Scale Justice at such a pivotal moment for the organization,” said Joe Stephens. “At a time of rapid technological innovation, Scale Justice plays an indispensable role in bringing together stakeholders from across sectors to tackle longstanding challenges at the heart of our legal system.”

About Scale Justice
Scale Justice is a national non-profit dedicated to making the law work for all by partnering with courts, legal aid, and community organizations to build digital tools that empower and increase access to justice. Through technology and collaborative partnerships, Scale Justice works to demystify legal procedures for the public while enabling legal professionals to deliver fair, efficient, and transparent justice. For more information, visit www.scalejustice.org.

Media Contact:
ScaleJustice@InfiniteGlobal.com

As we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, we remember and honor those who lost their lives in the attacks and their aftermath. We also reflect on how that tragic day became a defining moment for both New York’s legal community and our organization, underscoring the power of common purpose and service in responding to immense need.

Within days of 9/11, New York’s legal community came together to launch an unprecedented legal relief effort to help victims, their families, first responders, recovery workers, and others. Pro Bono Net, founded just two years earlier, had the great privilege of working shoulder to shoulder with city and state bar leaders, legal aid partners, numerous law firms, and law schools to build and coordinate this effort.

Supported by our fledgling probono.net/ny platform, the first of its kind to connect legal professionals with pro bono opportunities and online practice resources, this network mobilized and trained more than 3,000 pro bono volunteers, who represented more than 4,000 individuals and families affected by the events. LawHelpNY, just one year old at the time, provided crucial legal information to victims and their families, as well as to low-income and immigrant communities across New York City affected by the tragedy’s broader legal and economic ramifications. 

That mobilization was made possible by a broad coalition of partners. The City Bar Fund of the New York City Bar Association, Legal Services NYC, The Legal Aid Society, Volunteers of Legal Service, NYPLI, Lawyers Alliance, NYLAG, and Her Justice, among others, developed critical resources for volunteers and the public, which were distributed through probono.net/ny and LawHelpNY, as well as a groundbreaking Family Facilitator model, which provided ongoing representation to impacted families for virtually any legal issue arising from 9/11. A team of Morrison & Foerster attorneys created a comprehensive Helping Handbook: Legal Resources for Families of Victims of the World Trade Center Disaster—the first in a long-running series the firm continues to this day—which was widely disseminated in print and through LawHelpNY. Numerous other firms, including Davis Polk, played leadership roles in coordinating pro bono efforts and marshaling financial support for the broader legal response.

The lessons and lasting partnerships of that period became a blueprint for future rapid response efforts in New York City, including our work in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, and other disaster relief collaborations across the country. They also illustrate what’s possible when the legal profession joins together with vision, compassion, and a commitment to help those facing profound hardship and to serve the public good. 

We remain deeply grateful to all of the organizations, leaders, and staff who stepped forward to lead the response 25 years ago, and to the outpouring of volunteers whose dedication made a relief effort on such a scale possible.

To learn more about this remarkable community effort, we encourage you to read Public Service in a Time of Crisis: A Report and Retrospective on the Legal Community’s Response to the Events of September 11, 2001 (Fordham Urban Law Journal, 2004).

We also recommend this reflection by the late William Dean, former Executive Director of VOLS, written just two months after 9/11, along with current City Bar President Matthew Diller’s piece marking the anniversary and the recent The Legal Response to 9/11 – 44th Street Podcast.

To learn more about our current work helping people access justice and find help when they need it most, reach out to us or visit: https://scalejustice.org/about. 

August 6, 2026 — Scale Justice, a national non-profit and leading voice in legal innovation and technology, and the National Association for Court Management (NACM), the world’s largest organization of court management professionals, have entered into a formal partnership. The collaboration aims to equip court administrators, managers, and staff with the tools and insights necessary to navigate an evolving legal landscape and better serve the public.

Driven by a shared mission to increase access to justice, the partnership will deliver specialized educational content tailored to the unique needs of NACM members. Scale Justice and NACM will co-develop comprehensive webinars, in-depth articles, and other resources focusing on modern court administration, leveraging technology, and user-centric justice systems. The joint educational programming is slated to launch later this year, with initial webinar schedules and publication releases to be announced on both organizations’ platforms.

“The challenges facing courts and the justice system today require practical, scalable solutions,” said Zach Zarnow, Executive Director of Scale Justice. “By combining NACM’s robust network with Scale Justice’s expertise in user-centered innovation, we can provide actionable learning that helps courts reduce barriers, streamline operations, and ultimately make access to justice a reality for all communities.”

“Partnering with Scale Justice allows us to expand the high-quality educational resources we offer our members,” said Greg Lambard, NACM President. “Our focus has always been on elevating the profession of court management, and this collaboration provides our network with fresh, practical perspectives on driving meaningful court innovation.”

About Scale Justice Scale Justice is a national non-profit dedicated to making the law work for all by partnering with courts, legal aid, and community organizations to build digital tools that empower and increase access to justice. Through technology and collaborative partnerships, Scale Justice works to demystify legal procedures for the public while enabling legal professionals to deliver fair, efficient, and transparent justice. For more information, visit www.scalejustice.org.

About the National Association for Court Management (NACM) The National Association for Court Management is an organization of over 1,900 court management professionals. NACM is committed to improving the quality of justice and advancing the profession of court administration through education, leadership, and advocacy. For more information, visit https://nacmnet.org/.

Media Contacts: Scale Justice media inquiries: ScaleJustice@InfiniteGlobal.com
NACM media inquiries: nacm@ncsc.org

Earlier this month, our country marked its 250th anniversary, a milestone that commemorates our nation’s bold declaration of self-government and our ongoing work to fulfill the democratic values at its core, including the promise of equal justice for all. 

It’s also an opportunity to reflect on what it takes for a democracy under strain not just to endure, but to evolve and thrive. Democracy depends not only on elections and laws, but on people believing the system works fairly for them. Rights mean little if you don’t know they exist, can’t enforce them, or if access to them depends on what’s in your wallet.

Right now across America, millions of people are forced to navigate life-changing issues—eviction, losing custody of their children, navigating debt, or trying to secure basic safety—on their own because legal help is unavailable or unaffordable.  When people can’t use the law to protect their families, homes, or livelihoods, trust in our institutions, and in democracy itself, begins to erode.

Scale Justice exists to change that. 

With your support, we’ve been a transformative force for expanding legal help, working to ensure that access to justice is a right, not a privilege reserved for the few. 

We focus on people-centered but scalable solutions: helping people understand their rights, removing barriers that prevent people from getting help, expanding access to assistance, and partnering with legal aid organizations, courts, and community groups to help ensure everyday people can actually use the law to solve urgent problems. 

Please consider making a gift today to support this work. Your donation helps create a more just society where every person can understand, use, and benefit from the protections and opportunities our democracy is meant to provide.

Naturalization represents more than a legal status. It should be a promise of belonging, opportunity, and protection.

Today, as that promise is under attack at the highest levels, including the birthright citizenship case now before the Supreme Court, it is essential that the path to citizenship remains open and safe for the estimated nine million lawful permanent residents eligible to take this step.

The forces seeking to restrict access to citizenship don’t just shape headlines. They create real barriers for real people: healthcare workers, parents of military members, individuals granted asylum, and long-time residents who have lived, worked and contributed for years.

How Citizenshipworks helps:

  • Simple, step-by-step guidance in three languages
    Citizenshipworks walks applicants through the process, from checking eligibility to completing forms, in clear, plain language.
  • Access to trusted legal help
    When questions or concerns arise, individuals are connected to our network of nonprofit legal partners, either online or in their communities.
  • Reach and scale
    Over the past decade, Citizenshipworks has supported more than 79,000 people in starting or completing their naturalization journey, including over 40,800 who successfully prepared fileable N-400 applications.

As we continue this work, we remain committed to ensuring that aspiring Americans can access trusted information, reliable legal support, and a safe, affordable path to citizenship through Citizenshipworks.

At a time when navigating the naturalization process can feel increasingly uncertain, this support matters more than ever. Thanks to the generosity of supporters like you, thousands of individuals and families are able to move forward with confidence and dignity. If you would like to help expand access to these critical resources, we invite you to support this work and help keep the path to citizenship within reach for more communities nationwide.

March 16, 2026 — NEW YORK, NY — Pro Bono Net, the nation’s leading nonprofit access to justice technology innovator, today announced it is rebranding as Scale Justice, marking a new chapter in the organization’s 25-plus-year commitment to making legal help more equitable and attainable for millions.

The new name reflects the organization’s evolution from its founding mission—to harness technology to mobilize pro bono legal services—to its broader role as a national leader expanding justice and opportunity through digital innovation. Scale Justice’s work centers on a core belief: the law should be accessible to everyone, and technology and impactful partnerships can help make that possible.

“This is a really exciting time for our organization as we enter our next chapter with a new name and deep commitment to our mission,” said Zach Zarnow, Executive Director of Scale Justice. “There is a lot of incredible work and success to build upon, and I am very optimistic about where we are headed and how we can continue to be an innovative leader at the intersection of technology and increasing access to justice.”

Over the past quarter-century, the organization has transformed how people find and access legal help. Today, Scale Justice’s flagship programs — including LawHelp, LawHelp Interactive, and Citizenshipworks — will continue to anchor the organization’s work while powering new initiatives and collaborations to tackle pressing needs. Together, these programs support more than 8 million people each year, save an estimated $97 million in legal fees, and strengthen the efforts of more than 300 partner organizations nationwide. New tools such as Reclamo.AI, a multilingual chatbot that helps low‑wage and immigrant New York workers understand their rights, underscore the organization’s investment in responsible AI and community‑centered design to ensure that critical legal support reaches those who need it most. 

Founded in 1999 at the dawn of the Internet era by pro bono innovators Mark O’Brien and Michael Hertz, the organization pioneered the use of digital tools and cross-sector collaboration to expand access to legal services. Since then, Scale Justice has built a 25-year track record of impact and innovation, serving the public as well as hundreds of legal services, immigrants’ rights, and community groups, as well as courts, law firms and government agencies that leverage its tools to better reach and represent those in need.

“Scale Justice already helps millions of people each year access legal information and assert their rights,” said Betty Balli Torres, Chair of the Scale Justice Board of Directors. “Our new name reflects our continued commitment to building the digital solutions people and communities need to achieve justice.”

The rebrand reflects Scale Justice’s renewed commitment to developing not-for-profit, sustainable and safe digital legal solutions for help-seekers and advocates. The organization will continue to operate its existing programs under the Scale Justice name, maintaining all current partnerships and services while expanding its impact through new initiatives.

About Scale Justice
Scale Justice (formerly Pro Bono Net) is the country’s leading nonprofit access to justice technology innovator with a 27-year history of impact. We create digital tools and partnerships that enable people to understand their rights, access justice, and live more secure lives. For more information, visit www.scalejustice.org.

Media Contact:
Danielle Hass
Danielle.hass@infiniteglobal.com
914-406-0244

NEW YORK —Today Justicia Lab – Pro Bono Net’s nonprofit innovation incubator for technology solutions supporting the worker and immigrant rights movement – along with the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) announced the launch of Reclamo AI. The tool is a multilingual, mobile-first digital assistant that helps low-wage and immigrant workers to prevent, assess and document workplace violations in New York State.

The initial iteration of Reclamo launched in 2022 to help screen and file wage theft complaints in New York State. It was originally designed to empower non lawyer advocates – including worker organizers and staff from worker and employment centers – to support workers in addressing wage theft violations in the construction and buildings trades. The tool has been used to file over $1.5 million in wage theft claims on behalf of workers since its launch.

The new edition is now available for workers to use and access directly by text and voice through any smartphone browser or WhatsApp. The content is optimized in both English and Spanish and is accessible in an additional 50 languages. The expanded platform now covers all areas of employment law in New York State, including the sectors where wage theft is most prevalent including construction, hospitality, domestic work, retail, and child and elder care services.

“Reclamo AI comes at a moment when workers feel disempowered, and we want them to know they have power, a voice and partners to support them,” said Justicia Lab Director Rodrigo Camarena. 

“There is unlimited need for advocacy support for workers but nearly every legal service organization in New York is overrun with demand,” said Mel González, director of NYLAG’s Employment Law Project. “By embracing AI and other new platforms with technology partners like Justicia Lab that center building worker power, a greater number of low-wage and immigrant workers will be able to receive accurate and timely legal education and resources.”

Wage theft is a national epidemic and is especially prevalent in New York state, having been experienced by over 127,000 New Yorkers who are collectively owed millions in lost wages and disproportionately impacting low-wage workers, communities of color, immigrants and women. 

This issue is enabled by a host of factors including: a lack of knowledge by workers around state wage and hour rules, poorly designed and enforced bureaucratic complaint processes, and lack of free or low bono legal assistance. Filing a wage theft claim is difficult and time-consuming, with forms filled with legal jargon that’s hard to understand, especially for non-English speakers. As a result, many potential wage theft claims remain overlooked and unfiled.

Through Reclamo AI, workers are able understand their situation and what remedies are available and expedite their ability to take action helping them to:

  • Understand laws pertaining to wage theft in New York State and federally – including minimum wage violations, overtime requirements and illegal deductions
  • Find out if a current or potential employer has committed wage theft exploitation previously 
  • Provide information on pro bono legal support and non lawyer advocates for additional assistance 
  • Safely be connected with pro bono legal support and non lawyer advocates for additional assistance 

The tool leverages vetted workplace justice educational materials collated by NYLAG’s team of lawyers as well as Documented NY’s Wage Theft Monitor database of more than 35,000 proven claims of wage theft filed with the New York State and Federal Departments of Labor and other proprietary materials developed by Justicia Lab and their partners. This ensures that workers will be learning directly from vetted data and verified legal information from trusted sources rather than from the wider internet.

Reclamo AI was developed using an original application of generative artificial intelligence, with data privacy and security measures directly designed into the development of the tool. Reclamo AI’s user data is stripped of personally identifiable information, anonymized, and deleted from the system every 48 hours. The tool also leverages enterprise AI models, and does not use or share user data for AI retraining. Justicia Lab will continue to integrate worker and advocate feedback into new features and with future versions of the tool.

Reclamo AI was developed with funding and technical support from GitLab’s AI for Economic Opportunity Fund and support from the J.M. Kaplan Innovation Prize.

About Justicia Lab

Justicia Lab is Pro Bono Net’s immigrant justice technology lab and a nonprofit legal tech initiative whose mission is to transform immigrant justice through collaboration, creativity, and technology. It works hand in hand with immigrants and their advocates to identify common challenges and incubate scalable digital tools to help immigrants navigate the immigration system, find workplace justice, and more. Justicia Lab has developed over a dozen legal tools for immigrant justice, helping over 500,000 people annually find critical immigration information and relief.

About Pro Bono Net

Pro Bono Net is the country’s leading nonprofit access-to-justice innovator with a 25-year history of impact. From connecting attorneys to those in most need to creating legal tools to help individuals advocate for themselves, Pro Bono Net makes the law work for the many and not the few. 

About NYLAG  

Founded in 1990, New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) is a leading civil legal services organization combating economic, racial and social injustice by advocating for people experiencing poverty or in crisis. Our services include comprehensive, free civil legal services, financial empowerment, impact litigation, policy advocacy and community partnerships. Prioritizing client-centered, trauma-informed and community-rooted programming, NYLAG worked at more than 200 community sites and impacted the lives of more than 127,000 people last year.

This summer, Congress passed H.R. 1 – sweeping legislation that is reshaping who has access to health insurance, disability support services and food assistance. Combined with drastic cuts to the federal workforce and the government shutdown, these measures have made accessing and retaining critical benefits even harder. 

For millions of hardworking families, the results are stark:

  • Rising affordability challenges as Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) support shrink, leaving more people facing unaffordable care. 
  • New barriers to food and housing stability, as work requirements tighten and states lose the ability to waive them in struggling communities. 
  • Widening justice gaps, as those cut off from benefits must navigate confusing systems alone. 

For those already living paycheck to paycheck, these changes mean impossible choices: paying rent or putting food on the table, filling a prescription or covering a utility bill. 

At Pro Bono Net, we know what happens when the safety net is stripped away – it forces people into the legal system to fight for health care, housing, food, and financial security. 

Our LawHelp program connects people to free legal information, referrals to trusted legal aid programs, and self-advocacy tools. Through our 16-state network, we help over 20,000 people every day navigate pressing issues from family safety and housing stability to unemployment and food insecurity, ensuring that no one faces these battles alone.

Today, more people than ever will need LawHelp to understand their rights and find help. And they’ll need us – and you – to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks. 

Your support powers this legal lifeline. Together, we can ensure that those hardest hit by these cuts are not left without options or hope.