Acknowledgments

This book has been a long time coming. To everyone involved: thank you for bearing with us.

Thank you to our twelve coauthors, who span research and practice and many corners of the globe. You taught us so much. We’re already wondering: how can we get the band back together? We want to keep learning with you.

Thank you to the terrific team at Cambridge University Press, including John Berger, Rebecca Jackaman, Anubam Vijayakrishanan, and Ami Naramor.

Thank you to two anonymous peer reviewers. Your feedback made this book better.

A generous grant from the World Bank Netherlands Partnership Program supported most of the field research, though the findings and views expressed in this book do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank or its Executive Directors. Thank you to World Bank colleagues past and present who gave us their time and insight, including Nick Menzies, Rick Messick, Adrian Di Giovanni, Caroline Sage, Christina Biebesheimer, and Michael Woolcock.

Thank you to the entire extraordinary team at Namati. Deyla Curtis has been a caring steward for years now. Jinyoung Lee and Alice Goldenberg were indefatigable researchers, organizers, cheerleaders, and problem solvers. They were the community paralegals of this project in its final stage. Without them it may not have crossed the finish line.

Thank you to the Open Society Foundations. We dreamed that this book could be available for free to legal empowerment practitioners worldwide. OSF made that possible. OSF also supported completion of the project. Zaza Namarodze has backed the work this book describes with passion, persistence, and an ethic of quiet service for fifteen years. He’s just getting started.

Thank you to participants in the Legal Empowerment Leadership Course at Central European University. Their feedback – drawn from hard-won experience – was precious.

Thank you to our families: Tania, Ayesha, Yasmeen, Sharif, Safya, Luka, Sajan, and the Maru, James, Gauri, and Khan clans.

Thank you to the members of the Global Legal Empowerment Network. There are thousands of us now, from 150 countries, working to put the power of law in people’s hands.

Our greatest debt is to the communities and paralegals who shared their stories with us. We honor your struggles for justice. We dedicate this book to you.