Meet our five inspiring finalists below, and vote for your favorite
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Pinay Law
In Filipino culture, where divorce is illegal and silence around family issues is the norm, Pinay Law was founded to break through this stigma and provide a place where community and culture meet compassionate legal care for Filipino and Asian American communities. There is no word for divorce in Filipino languages, and many are unaware of their rights regarding child support, alimony, or equitable division of assets. Pinay Law addresses this knowledge gap while supporting the Midwest’s only Filipino-focused legal clinic, advocating for interpreter access in family law cases, and employing Filipino virtual assistants to provide services in native languages like Tagalog and Bisaya. With only 2% of U.S. lawyers identifying as Asian and 4.4 million Filipino Americans nationwide, Pinay Law is pushing for broader access, stronger education, and a redefined model of what inclusive, community-driven legal advocacy can look like. -
Laviano & Gagne, LLC
Laviano & Gagne, LLC is dedicated to ensuring that students with disabilities—aged 3 to 22—receive the education and services guaranteed by law. The firm empowers families, upholds the rights of students with disabilities, and works to embed inclusion as a foundational principle in both education and society. Partners Jennifer Laviano and Melissa Gagne advocate at every level: from securing placements and accommodations for individual students to shaping statewide and national policy. They serve in leadership roles with organizations like COPAA, CCARC, and SEEK CT—driving systemic change that holds schools accountable for respecting the rights of students with disabilities, and promoting meaningful access to education. Through legal victories, legislative reform, and community partnerships, Laviano & Gagne is reshaping the future for students with disabilities—ensuring justice for individuals with disabilities isn’t just policy, but practice.
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Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence | Northcutt Legal Clinic
Established in 1998, the Northcutt Legal Clinic, a program of the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence, provides free civil legal services to survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and trafficking across six coastal counties in Mississippi. Focused on pro-bono civil legal services like divorce, custody, and protection orders, the clinic is a key pillar in the region’s survivor support network. Since implementing Clio in 2019, the clinic has served more than 650 clients and continues to expand its reach. In 2024, the team co-led a CLE-eligible training on domestic violence in custody cases and developed funding guidelines to support Guardian Ad Litems when handling these sensitive family matters. Now housed within Mississippi’s first Family Justice Center, the clinic is co-located with advocates and medical professionals—creating a centralized, trauma-informed space for survivors to access holistic care and legal protection under one roof.
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Safe Sendoff
When young adults turn 18, they gain legal independence—but often without the documents needed to protect their health and finances. Safe Sendoff, founded by estate planning attorneys Rachel Allums and Allison Harrison, empowers this often-overlooked population by making powers of attorney accessible, affordable, and easy to understand. Through a streamlined online platform, Safe Sendoff helps young adults in all 50 states create legally valid healthcare and financial powers of attorney at a fraction of the cost of traditional legal services. Their work fills a critical gap, ensuring families can make urgent decisions when it matters most. With a mission rooted in education and access, Safe Sendoff continues to expand its impact through tools like the Adulting 101 Webinar Series—giving young people the confidence to manage their legal rights from day one of adulthood.
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Hemmat Law Group
In Seattle, roughly 60% of domestic violence and family law litigants go without legal representation—and many more never make it to court at all. For the 1-in-4 women who experience DV in their lifetimes, the legal access gap has devastating consequences. To meet this need, Hemmat Law developed Songbird.legal, a custom-built document generation platform that empowers self-represented individuals to seek protection orders at scale. Unlike other legal tools built for only the simplest cases, Songbird dynamically produces contextualized document bundles, organizes declaration narratives, and prepares exhibits through an intuitive, drag-and-drop timeline interface – for the cost of only a single dollar. By putting legal infrastructure directly into the hands of those who need it most, Hemmat Law is reimagining what access to justice looks like when it is freely distributed to all—saving each petitioner tens of thousands per case.
