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Our History
The Legal Rights Center (LRC) came into being through the coordinated efforts of activist communities, organized by the American Indian Movement (AIM) and The Way. Working with attorney Doug Hall, who in turn brought the leadership of Peter Dorsey of the Dorsey & Whitney law firm, contributions were gathered from the legal community and the nonprofit firm was founded in March 1970. |
Doug Hall
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The roots of the LRC’s groundbreaking approach to legal practice had been established by AIM and The Way, organizations which had previously worked directly with Doug Hall on pro bono cases, serving as investigators, locating witnesses, and finding suitable and culturally appropriate programs to help clients with needs beyond the courtroom.
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Doug Hall and Clyde Bellecourt in 2000.
As the LRC’s first Executive Director, Doug Hall invented a position previously unheard of in legal practice – Community Worker – to handle these very same tasks. Those hired at first (and many after) were strongly associated with AIM and The Way, and helped integrate the efforts of the LRC with the other culturally-specific institutions being built by AIM and the African American community. The Community Worker structure ensured that clients would place trust in their lawyers, a necessary component of successful representation, and not an easy accomplishment given the strong historical basis for distrust of the court system. With the growth of immigrant communities in Minneapolis, the LRC extended the coalition and hired new Community Workers, with the necessary additions to the job description of providing language and cultural translation in support of the attorney-client relationship, and delivering education about the law.
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The LRC’s initial focus included fighting back against racial biases in Child Protection and the forced removal of children from their homes, a key igniter of historical distrust of court. But as criminalization began its long and painful acceleration, the demand for assistance with criminal and juvenile defense cases became overwhelming. Arrests without good cause, police beatings, and general police disdain for recognizing the humanity of non-Whites were widespread – including an incident of handcuffing American Indians to lampposts. In this backdrop, the LRC earned a reputation for protecting the dignity of its clients, among other reasons for its willingness to take cases to trial and tell the full story. The message came through to both external and internal audiences: constitutional and human rights apply to all, and can be fought for.
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 Judge Pamela Alexander.
The LRC also led the way in hiring diverse attorneys who would develop outstanding reputations. The first decade included Michael J. Davis and Pamela Alexander, who both went on to become judges, with Davis becoming Chief Federal District Judge. William McGee, the LRC’s second Executive Director, became Chief Hennepin County Public Defender, and his successor, Keith Ellison, was elected to the legislature and the U.S. Congress, and is now the Minnesota Attorney General.
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William McGee
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Judge Michael J. Davis
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Keith Ellison
As criminalization and its accompanying devastation of communities of color hit new peaks in the 1990’s – with hysteria about “super predator” juveniles, and racially biased theory (later disproven) and practices such as pushing extreme enforcement of misdemeanors as a means to improve neighborhood safety and stability – the reliance on legal representation to protect communities against system excesses seemed to forever run uphill. In this atmosphere, the LRC joined the early advocacy for restorative justice alternatives controlled by the communities most directly affected by crime and criminalization. (The movement eventually led to a few small scale neighborhood-based projects that enabled some good alternative practices at the margins of the criminal justice world, but restorative justice has never been allowed to be structured as a form of community control, or challenge justice system business as usual.)
In the new millennium, the LRC developed its expertise in Family Group Conferencing, a restorative method well aligned with the professional skills of a legal organization, and whose purposes returned us to our early focus on defending family continuity and promoting culturally-specific support. Projects have included: supporting county efforts at family reunification after a child removal, supporting family healing in the aftermath of a juvenile delinquency adjudication for domestic assault against a family member, and guiding co-parents towards a plan for cooperative child raising.
Over the last ten years, the LRC has prioritized the need to demonstrate the effectiveness of restorative practices outside of the predetermined limits imposed by the juvenile justice system. Given the opportunity to simultaneously address education system disparities, the LRC adapted Family Group Conferencing as a positive and restorative response to significant violations of school behavioral standards, leading to an ongoing project with the Minneapolis Public Schools for which an extensive university evaluation demonstrated the model practice and paved the way for further utilization. To best emphasize the importance of integrating restorative practices within juvenile justice advocacy in all systems, the LRC reorganized its programs at the beginning of 2015, creating the Youth: Education, Advocacy, and Restorative Services program, alongside the long-running (but renamed) Community Defense Program.
Over the last ten years, the LRC has prioritized the need to demonstrate the effectiveness of restorative practices outside of the predetermined limits imposed by the juvenile justice system. Given the opportunity to simultaneously address education system disparities, the LRC adapted Family Group Conferencing as a positive and restorative response to significant violations of school behavioral standards, leading to an ongoing project with the Minneapolis Public Schools for which an extensive university evaluation demonstrated the model practice and paved the way for further utilization. To best emphasize the importance of integrating restorative practices within juvenile justice advocacy in all systems, the LRC reorganized its programs at the beginning of 2015, creating the Youth: Education, Advocacy, and Restorative Services program, alongside the long-running (but renamed) Community Defense Program.
A Black Lives Matter protest at the Mall of America -- which led to arrests and Community Defense Program representation
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Protesters rally for CeCe McDonald, a former Legal Rights Center client.
Evaluation of the Youth: Education, Advocacy and Restorative Services program's pioneering use of Family Group Conferencing
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