Talk Justice: Episode Fifty

Guests 

Nikole Nelson is the executive director of Alaska Legal Services Corporation (ALSC), Alaska’s only LSC-funded program and the only statewide provider of free civil legal assistance to low-income Alaskans. Nikole oversees ALSC’s 11 offices and a staff of more than 40 people who are scattered across the vast state of Alaska. She joined ALSC in 1998 as a staff attorney shortly after graduating from Willamette University College of Law. Before being hired as ALSC’s Executive Director in 2010, she managed ALSC’s four offices in Alaska’s largest judicial district. She is a member of the Alaska Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Access to Civil Justice, the Alaska Bar Association’s Pro Bono Services Committee, she serves on the Municipality of Anchorage’s Housing and Neighborhood Development Commission, and currently Co-Chair’s that Commission’s Oversight Subcommittee on Homelessness.

Dr. Robert Onders is currently the Medical Director for Maniilaq Health Center. Previously he worked for Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) as the Alaska Native Medical Center Administrator (2020-2022), President of Alaska Pacific University (APU) when APU affiliated with the ANTHC (2017-2020), and Medical Director of Health Systems Improvements (2015-2020). Prior to joining ANTHC in 2015, Dr. Onders worked as clinical director for Kodiak Area Native Association and emergency department director at West Park Hospital in Cody, Wyoming. Dr. Onders graduated from a combined six-year B.S./M.D. program through Kent State University and Northeast Ohio Medical University in 1997. He completed his Family Medicine residency, Juris Doctorate, and Master of Public Administration with the University of Wyoming.

Professor Sandefur studies access to civil justice from every angle – from how legal services are delivered and consumed, to how civil legal aid is organized around the nation, to the role of pro bono, to the relative efficacy of lawyers and non-lawyers as advocates and representatives, to how ordinary people think about their justice problems and try to resolve them. Her current research includes the Community Needs and Services Study (CNSS), a community-sited, multi-method study of ordinary people’s experiences with civil justice problems and the resources available to assist them in handling those problems. The CNSS is funded by the National Science Foundation (SES-1123507) and the American Bar Foundation.  She is also at work on a project drawing on the After the JD (AJD) surveys exploring how lawyers who take relatively low-paying jobs serving government, public interest causes, or ordinary people are able (or not) to manage high levels of educational debt. She serves on the Executive Coordinating Committee of the AJD.  Her work has been published in law reviews, edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals such as American Sociological Review, Work and Occupations, and Law and Society Review.

Her public service has included advising state access to justice commissions and service on the Right to Counsel Committee of the California Access to Justice Commission, the Research Advisory Board of the Civil Right to Counsel Leadership and Support Initiative, and the Sargent Shriver Civil Right to Counsel Evaluation Committee.  Before joining the American Bar Foundation and the University of Illinois, Sandefur received her PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago in 2001 and served for 9 years on the sociology faculty of Stanford University.

Host 

Ronald S. Flagg was appointed President of Legal Services Corporation effective February 20, 2020, and previously served as Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel since 2013. He previously practiced commercial and administrative litigation at Sidley Austin LLP for 31 years, 27 years as a partner. He chaired the firm's Committee on Pro Bono and Public Interest Law for more than a decade. 

Flagg served as president of the District of Columbia Bar in 2010-2011 and currently serves as Chair of the Bar's Pro Bono Task Force and on the Board of the DC Bar Foundation. He previously also services as Chair of the Board of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, Chair of the District of Columbia Bar Pro Bono Center, Chair of the Board of the AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and as a member of the American Bar Association's House of Delegates, the Board of the Washington Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the District of Columbia Judicial Nomination Commission. 

Flagg graduated with honors from the University of Chicago and cum laude from Harvard Law School. He began his career as a law clerk to Judge Myron L. Gordon, U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin and as attorney-advisor in the United States Department of Justice, Office of Intelligence Policy.