Legal Outreach History Legal Outreach is a non-profit
organization that uses the law to inspire vision and foster
skills in high school students from New York City’s most under-
served areas. In 1982, Legal Outreach Co-Founder and Executive
Director, James O’Neal, graduated from Harvard Law School and
came to New York as the recipient of Harvard’s first Public
Interest Law Fellowship. Determined to serve at-risk teens, he
taught the law to students in Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and
the South Bronx. In the classroom, O’Neal discovered that he
could sustain interest and develop skills by discussing legal
issues relevant to their communities–child abuse and neglect,
domestic violence, and the right against unreasonable searches
by police. O’Neal designed and wrote four innovative law-related
curricula which continue to serve as the foundation of the
organization’s work in middle schools across New York City. For
27 years, Legal Outreach has used the law as a vehicle to
motivate urban teens to strive for academic