I'm reading the book Community Paralegals and the Pursuit of Justicehttps://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/human-rights/community-paralegals-and-pursuit-justice (pricey hardcover, free PDF download), and right off the bat was struck by the similarities with how community science relates to the pursuit of justice as an "intermediary institution:"
Advancing justice requires at least three elements. First, people need to conceive of themselves as bearers of rights, as agents capable of action. In other words, they must undergo that transformation of outlook in which, as Hannah Pitkin puts it, “I want” becomes “I am entitled to.” Second, state institutions – administrative agencies, legislatures, the courts – need to be fair, effective, and responsive to their citizens. Much of political science is about how to make governments more so. Third, in our view, there is a need for intermediary institutions that assist citizens in exercising their rights. In other words, there needs to be, as Gauri and Brinks describe it, a “legal support structure appropriate to the claims being brought, in light of the institutional requirements” in any given context. There are many kinds of intermediary institutions. Political parties and unions, for example, serve as intermediaries for electoral politics and workplaces respectively. Public interest lawyers help people access formal courts. Ombudsman offices serve as intermediaries for citizens seeking to resolve grievances against the state. In this book, we aim to characterize and assess a lesser-known intermediate institution – the community paralegal. According to the 2012 Kampala Declaration on Community Paralegals, community paralegals “use knowledge of law and government and tools like mediation, organizing, education, and advocacy to [help people] seek concrete solutions to instances of injustice.”
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This concept has been practiced internationally by http://namati.org/, whose tagline is "innovations in legal empowerment."