The Justice Tech Movement and Access to Justice in 2022

1:44AM May 25, 2022

Speakers:

Tom Martin

Cat Moon

Natalie Anne Knowlton

Maya Markovich

Erin Levine

Sonja Ebron

Keywords:

justice

lawyers

tech

legal aid

legal

solutions

people

access

jta

technology

outcomes

problems

opportunity

question

customers

point

conversation

courtroom

nonprofits

represent

Hey there. So our event sponsor for today is ARAG Legal Insurance. And they really walk the walk when it comes to promoting access to justice. So we're really happy to have them sponsoring this event, as well as our award sponsors. Also include Clio, GNGF, and MyCase. So, if you all haven't yet registered to attend the awards event, which is going to be amazing, it's on October 9, in Nashville. It's on the Sunday, right before Clio on Monday. So if you're in Nashville, for Clio, definitely check us out and attend, just go to American Legal Technology.com. And you can buy your ticket today, get $75 off, it's an amazing deal for a night out.

So I'd like to introduce our moderator for today. It's Cat Moon. And I'm really honored that she is my co founder on the American Legal Technology Awards. She's also as you all probably know, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, and the Director of the Program on Law and Innovation. So really excited to have Cat leave the conversation, and introduce everyone else. So I'll hand it over to you, Cat.

Thank you, Tom. It is awesome to be here with this amazing panel of geniuses. And so it's and just phenomenal women, so honored to have this conversation. And my goal is really not to say too much. I'll just say a couple of things really quickly. Absolutely. Thank you so much to our sponsors who are making this possible, we are grateful. And if you come, you've got to come to Nashville for the awards, because I'll be there. I think everybody on the screen will be there, you should come it's going to be a great party. All right. Without further ado, we are here today to talk to you what I think is one of the hottest topics in the legal profession right now. And I think also one of the most exciting areas for really moving the needle on how we make law better. And so it's we're talking about the concept of access to justice, but we are thinking about it a little bit differently. Today, we want to talk about the Justice Tech movement, and what what it means what it is how if it can really move the needle to move access to justice, forward.

What are some examples of success? What does the future look like? There's also deregulation going on that fits in there.

They're really the question is, so how can all of this come together to serve the public better to truly make a lot better? So we're going to encourage questions as we go along, feel free to pop them into the chat as we're talking and we hope to get to as many as possible. Without further ado, though, I'm going to invite our participants to introduce themselves and I'm just going to call them out as they appear on my screen. So I'm gonna start with Natalie. Natalie, can you introduce yourself?

Sure. Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming today. I'm Natalie Anne Knowlton. I'm the director, director of special projects at IAALS and co founder and policy principal and access to justice at the soon to be launched Access to Justice Ventures. And I'm here today because I will literally never pass up an opportunity to appear with any one of these fantastic geniuses here.

Thank you, Natalie. Hey Maya.

Hi, thank you so much, Cat and everybody for joining. I am just a sec Executive in Residence at Village Capital, as well as Executive Director at Justice Technology Association, and also startup advisor and legal tech and innovation consultant.

Awesome. Thank you, Maya. Hey, Erin.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm Erin Levine. I'm a lawyer, certified family law specialist and owner of Levine Family Law Group. I'm also a founding member of board member of the Justice Tech Association, and the founder of Hello Divorce, an online platform that makes divorce a lot easier, friendlier and more affordable. And Justice tech is my jam. It's a passion of mine. I want to make sure that everyone has access to the legal help they need, but I also really want to elevate the profession.

Thank you, Erin. And Hello, Sonja.

Hi, everyone. I'm Sonja Ebron. I am co founder and chief executive at courtroom five, also a founding board member at the Justice Tech Association. Just always happy to talk about potential of justice tech, to close the justice gap. And it just really excited to be on any panel of geniuses. So thanks for having me.

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to you all. And without further ado, I'm going to kick things off with the first question. I do want to say, issue this disclaimer, I am on the board of advisors for the justice tech association. So just so everyone knows that. Let's talk about justice tech, what is justice tech? Can we define it? How is it different, same as similar to access to justice. And I'm happy for anyone to just to jump right in.

And give you the Justice technologists Association's definition of justice tech, and maybe leave it to others on the panel to talk more about the kind of the broader access to justice. But for us, Justice tech is companies that build solutions that are designed to improve or open access to one's legal rights or improve outcomes for them, and increase equity in a system that is often stacked against them. So with that definition, which is a really good definition. That also sounds like some smart folks spent a long time thinking about what is justice tech? So how is it different than access to justice? Like what is the connection there?

I think when we think of access to justice, at least, how it is, and I'm paraphrasing, but how it's defined by the US as a commission. It's efficiently delivering legal outcomes that are fair and accessible to all your respectable of wealth and status. So ensuring all Americans regardless of their circumstances, their socio economic status, disability, location, race, and access to the support that they need to resolve their legal issues. But with Justice Tech, we look at it more we define it broadly. Because I think that's very important. Just the other day, I was told by a venture capitalists that we're not helping to close the equity gap, because we're not working on criminal justice reform. I don't think that's fair, I think we have to look at the fact that the vast majority of Americans don't have access to any legal help for whatever issue that they're facing. But Justice tech specifically, is using technology to provide access and prove their legal outcomes and more equitably administer the legal system. So how can we use technology specifically to help?

So Erin, to your point about folks not having access right to the legal system to legal help? As I think we all know, Legal Services Corporation just came out with this latest study, and the number of low income Americans who don't get any help has risen to 92%. And, and that's looking at only in a certain segment of the US population who has legal problems, right? There's a whole host of folks who have legal problems who don't get help, that aren't even counted. So we know that number is actually the overall number of people who don't get help is larger than what shows up in that LSU study. So I'm curious how we see the connection because we often hear the conversation or the conversations often centered around providing access to those of the lowest incomes. But if we consider access to justice being something that everyone is entitled to how do we think Justice tech is actually expanding access for an numbers of people who, frankly aren't really being counted right now. So what do you think?

Yeah, access to justice has traditionally been seen as access to a lawyer. And I know, many legal aid programs see it that way. I, you know, in my opinion, aren't enough lawyers, even if everybody was willing to, to help solve this problem, there's aren't enough lawyers to meet the demand for legal services. Now. And so it seems to me in other industries, where this is a problem, where there's that, that supply constraint technology is the obvious solution to you know, providing additional services so that we can make good use of the available supply. And here, when we look at Justice tech, in particular, these are often software solutions that can help people get whatever access they can and enable them to use lawyers in a different way. That's certainly something we're looking at doing a courtroom five.

So Sonia, you referenced V made a reference to legal aid organizations and how they sort of typically look at access to justice. Which brings to mind a question I think, that many people have. When we look at Justice tech and the work it's doing to expand access. What is its connection to Legal Aid? What is potential? What is the potential impact? What are opportunities for partnership, right? What is some synergy there? Anyone? I've actually,

yeah, I've actually pitched a concept to legal aid to the among the leaders counsel at the Legal Services Corporation. And I've had an opportunity to just engage in some conversation there about the limited funding that LSE gets every year and better ways to use the limited supply of legal aid lawyers. And again, it just seems to me that Justice tech is and legal tech, more broadly, obvious solutions to using that vary that tremendous talent, dedicated Legal Aid attorneys in a different way. There's, I think, probably a, at best 50% opportunity to get a lawyer even if you're financially qualify for legal aid. Yet, you know, this is a broad this access to justice crisis is a broad middle class problem. And I know that legal aid offices across the country are delusioned on a daily basis with requests for help from people who will never be financially qualified for it by legal aid. And it just seems to me that if Legal Aid is going to meet its mission, they've got to make better use of technologies, and in particular, Justice tech, so that maybe they can use legal aid attorneys and a different way.

Excellent points. And yes, Erin, you're Yeah,

no, I just, I always love to hear Sonia speak. And obviously, you know, being both on the JTA, we spend a lot of time talking about this. But I really love the way she frames it. It's not just that there's not one solution that will work like pro bono legal aid, Justice tech companies, but it's that we really need to work together, we can't all live in a vacuum, no one solution is going to work. And until regulations are truly changed, and lawyers feel comfortable that they won't be in violation of them. We as founders, and justice tech companies really have our hands tight in terms of how comprehensive our solutions can be. Meaning we can't, as a founder, hello, divorce, I can't have hire lawyers directly to represent people that have very, very contentious, high conflict cases. But organizations like legal aid, if it's the right, customer, or client could be able to help with that. And I really don't like thinking about having one customer over here, and then sending them out in the world to go find a lawyer that's going to meet their needs. If we could work together and talk this through. We're all trying to solve the same general issue that I think that we'd have a lot more success serving a lot more people

effectively. Yeah, and I'll speak to the point about the kind of multiplicity of solutions. The 92% figure in the latest LLC report is really interesting, and that it both describes a really terrible problem. And then also, in a way tends to undercut the actual solution of legal aid is something that is scalable and solving the Justice crisis, because the number has gone up and if it's not getting any better than what does that say about At the actual scalability. So I think this is not a conversation that there's either an either or it's an everything. And I always talk about this kind of starfish. We've all heard the starfish thing. And you all have heard me say this before, but Legal Aid is kind of like that, in my mind along with pro bono, if someone's walking along and picks up the starfish, and they throw it in the ocean, and they've saved that one, but are they gonna save the entire beach around the entire country? No. And so it is really important for partnerships and partnerships. Legal Aid is very innovative, and they're doing a lot of stuff. And they're creating their own justice tech, but too often they're doing it in silos. They're recreating things that have been created before, not necessarily partnering, I think with outside solutions that might be considered in the private sector. And that's really where I think that they can scale what they're doing for the clients who need it, but also for the clients who are above that incredibly arbitrary 125% above the federal poverty guidelines. So I think it's an everything type of approach.

We are getting some questions, and but I want to build on that really quickly, Natalie. So there's been reference to obviously, the 92%. Not enough lawyers, there are, by the way, about 1.3 8 million practicing lawyers in the US, a whole bunch of those serve corporations, so not individual people. So the actual number of lawyers available to help people is actually much smaller. So when we think of access to justice, again, we think about serving the consumer. But this also may be a place where justice Tech is a little bit broader a solution as well, kind of bringing together more of these constituencies. So obviously, certainly serving the consumer, but some consumers are businesses, right, small businesses, and often small businesses get left out in in availability of legal services, then the question to have Is there any justice tech that actually empowers lawyers as well, to scale what they're doing? So I think there are a number of potential sectors, which leads me to ask you all to share some examples of, of justice tech. And what are folks doing? I mean, we have some justice tech practitioners with us. And so I'd be happy for you all to talk briefly about how you see your platforms, what you're doing, as examples or case studies of how we're going to be meeting these needs, through justice tech, that actually

before before, yes, they should think that they don't, they were the best to describe really what's going on on the ground. But I would just say that JTA was founded to support and represent primarily direct to consumer solutions that are built to bridge this access to justice gap. But Justice tech in general covers much more than that, right. So it's it's not only streamlining processes for groups like Public Defenders, courts, communities that are affected by a disproportionate incarceration, and the legal issues that often accompany living at or below the poverty line, or even middle. But also, you know, those that are making it easier for lawyers to do pro bono technologies that supports people and connecting, you know, connecting with attorneys and resources at critical points, for example, during a traffic stop. So it is definitely a lot broader. And we and that's why there's so many great minds out there kind of attacking this from different perspectives. So I think we're really lucky in that sense. But I'll hand it off to others.

Thank you, Maya.

So let me just let me share. Yeah, there's so many, we're all familiar with the legal legal tech, as a brand. And one of my advisors I spoke with recently about this. Ken Friedman was Deputy General Counsel, I think at LegalZoom for a decade. He reminded me recently that legal tech is primarily lawyer tech, it's law firm tech. Right. And so we we there are plenty of solutions out there to help lawyers do serve their clients better. And that's that's fantastic. Justice tech is, as my indicated earlier, was really focused on helping the actual party represent themselves better to be able to navigate complex civil justice issues and criminal justice issues on their own with or without the assistance of, of counsel. And I think it's important that we just make that distinction. We could have branded ourselves and legal tech Association, but that's just too broad, given what we wanted to focus on, and actually putting technology in the hands of litigants themselves, to be able to represent themselves.

Yeah, and I think when we think about justice Tech, we We need to, it's not just about lowering the cost of lawyers. It's about being more transparent with cost. It's about bringing lawyers in when and if you need it, there are certainly issues that come up that you absolutely want a lawyer. But we like we've already talked about on this panel, that's impossible. Even if ever, I think I read a statistic that Justice homeowners had quoted a couple of days ago, about even if every lawyer did 900 hours a year of pro bono work, they still want to be able to ensure that everybody has access to great legal help. So to me, it's, it's about being transparent with costs. It's about leveraging data to help predict outcomes. So people can make decisions if they are representing themselves with more peace of mind. It's about using technology to make lawyers smarter, so that they have access to not only their experience, but the experience of lawyers across their jurisdiction or across the country who have handled similar things. It's about automating the mundane like the name of the courthouse on every single form. The fact that lawyers or everyday people are having to retype that in over again, is really silly. It's about removing the administrative and the business tasks that take up lawyers time, some lawyers enjoy the aspect of, of running a business, a lot, don't a lot would like to spend much more time focusing on actually being a lawyer. And if they could do that, then they not only free up more time and have more of a work life balance, but they also ultimately make more money, even if they're charging a little bit less. I

think Aaron makes a great point about some of the what we think about when we think about the technology component, because this is in many instances, not rocket science. I mean, we're talking look at the the marketplace movement that swept the country, you know, a decade or two ago, that marketplace movement, the technology innovation there, among others was matching people from zip code to attorneys from that zip code. And along case types. I mean, it's as simple as that, then regulations have been sort of expanding to allow for more things like that. But we're really not talking about in many cases, this really complicated predictive analytics come in direct to consumer, we're talking about really small tech functions that are empowering access to whether it's information or attorneys.

Natalie, your point, leads me to a question that I frankly, am very curious about have spent a lot of time thinking about what do we think is happening now what is changing in our current legal landscape as it's evolving, that seems to be in my observation, or at least on Twitter, creating a groundswell to really push forward. Things like the JTA. And the growth of justice tech, as a real sector, like what's going on right now that you think is really providing this energy around this.

I think it's a combination of things. I think we're starting to see lb, it's slowly changing the shifting regulation landscape, which gives people hope, I think we're also starting to see that these companies that have now been in business for 123, maybe even longer years are actually making a dent, that they are making money or have a sustainable model. And that such that venture capitalists are investing and other lawyers are investing. But they're also successful enough that customers are happy with the outcome, and they're taking a lot of volume off the court. So we're seeing that there's a lot of success. And I think everybody wants to do well and do good, especially the vast majority of the people on this call, like looking at the participants. We have some real heavy hitters here that are doing really great things. And I think we all believe and are now seeing it come to fruition that you can make a good living and also be helping to provide justice and access to legal.

Just doubled down on on Aaron's point there there is the slight relaxation in the regulatory environment that is encouraging more justice tech solutions to be made available. I mean, if you take the shackles off of us, we're going to go after the market as entrepreneurs. We're going to make those solutions available. We know the need is there. The market does didn't necessarily know we exist, right? So it's our job to make those solutions to make those, the market aware of the solutions. And we will make that happen. And I think that is happening as we see the regulatory the regulatory environment softening just a bit. We need more of that.

Yeah, so Oh, sorry.

Go Maya go.

I'll just add one more thing. From an AI. Of course, we agree with what's been said already. But there's also more interest from the institutional philanthropy and VC side as investors and funders seeking avenues for, you know, significant positive impact and opportunity for disruption are becoming more aware of justice tech on this front as well. I'm working with a coalition and investors through my work at Village capital, which is further supporting these investors in mobilizing informed capital into ethical justice tech and streamlining deal flow essentially. And also, I would just would want to also throw out there that I want to very intentionally include nonprofits. Because JTA intentionally includes nonprofits as shared values and mission is much more important to us than business model. And also that they're at this point in the market. And in the in the disruptive cycle, we have a lot of nonprofits attacking solution, you know, challenges in the space, and their themselves are having. It's a whole other discussion for another panel, but they're having challenges kind of, in the early days, describing why they are nonprofit, or for profit. Beyond that, though, in general, I think that there's, you know, the investment in funding markets are starting to wake up to this opportunity.

And I think part maybe part of why that is another trend. And I don't know when it happened maybe about 10 years ago or so people finally realized that the voice of the lawyer did not represent necessarily the voice of the consumer. And so there became a more concerted effort nationally and locally to actually mobilize the voice of the consumers understand what people were going through without a lawyer. So now we have all kinds of institutional research centers working on this mind National Center, Emily, the grotto is working on this she's on the call and then access to justice Commission's around the country are starting to actually go around their jurisdiction and talk to people and hear what it's like. And so I think that is fueling a lot of this too.

I love that I think we learned a lot about that through our customers to ICESat. Like, our lawyers that work with our customers, like very intentionally start to shift the way they practice law over the last couple years. It used to be that they felt they had to prove their worth by winning by getting the best result possible for their customers that extra $20 a month in child support. And when we stopped and started to listen to the customer, we found that that really wasn't what most people want it. Right, they wanted to be able to move on with peace of mind, they wanted to know that they made a decision that's good for themselves and their family. They wanted to reframe the narrative with their ex so that they could co parent if not peacefully with at least less conflict going forward. So I'm not sure how that fits in, but it felt like it was worth saying

it is and I would I would echo that as well, here and we're hearing the same from our customers, it's not so much about the outcome, it is a desire to be heard, just to feel like you've had a fair shot to present your case to the court, which, you know, for for most people in court without a lawyer, particularly in the kinds of cases we see a courtroom fight, you know, they're shut out of the system, they aren't able to navigate it, they aren't able to exercise their civil procedure right there. And so they just want to be heard, is what we're hearing.

So how refreshing a human centered design approach to how we help people solve their legal problems? Yeah, so it seems like justice tech is becoming synonymous with a human centered a client centered stakeholder centered approach. And I'm a native stakeholder, so bear with me for a moment, there are some threads I'd like to pull together. We, reregulation UPL kind of those topics are bubbling up as part of this conversation as they must right I think it's critical that we look at who is allowed to provide legal help in the United States. Because that is frankly a real barrier to access for most people. Again, we only have about 1.3 million lawyers who can't possibly solve all the problems that exist or even help them So we have regulatory conversations happening, a little bit of change as Sonia referenced. And when we when we look at kind of that trajectory, a question pops up, I think in the minds of many, like, what is the role of lawyers going forward, specifically in justice tech, because our goal really is to empower more people and more platforms to help others solve their legal problems. So what is the potential impact on the legal industry if we're defining legal industry as lawyers, because that's what the legal industry is right now. Anyone care to venture into those muddy waters?