The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, Yale Law School and a group of legal nonprofits have collaborated to put together a legal roadmap for cities and municipal law offices interested in going to court to protect residents’ rights.

In a guidebook released Wednesday called “Local Action, National Impact: A Practical Guide to Affirmative Litigation for Local Governments,” officials with the city, Yale Law and legal nonprofits Public Rights Project and Justice Catalyst chronicle the dozen-year partnership between the law school and the city to bring impact litigation in areas of consumer protection, civil rights and the environment. According to the school, Yale law students spent roughly 30,000 hours volunteering for the city as part of the first 10 years of the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project.