New Report Builds a Framework for Civil Justice Innovation

Episode Notes

Transcript

 William Hubbard:

We must, as the report clearly states be about collaboration among people and institutions and organizations using all the talents and resources that we can bring to bear,

Announcer:

Equal access to justice is a core American value. In each episode of Talk Justice an An LSC Podcast, we’ll explore ways to expand access to justice and illustrate why it is important to the legal community, business government, and the General Public Talk. Justice is sponsored by the Leaders Council of the Legal Services Corporation.

Ron Flagg:

Hello and welcome to Talk Justice. I’m Ron Flagg, president of the Legal Services Corporation and your host for this episode. We often talk on this podcast about America’s justice gap and the knowledge gap across our country, about the justice gap and its implications and the need for additional voices to speak up about the justice gap and the path forward. To address it today we’re talking about a critical additional voice, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the academy’s new report called Achieving Civil Justice, a Framework for Collaboration. The report is the latest publication from the Academy’s Making Justice accessible project since 2014. That project has highlighted the scale of the civil justice gap by recognizing its social, economic, and human costs and calling for improved data collection. The project also is looking ahead to set standards for civil justice and to ensure all Americans have meaningful access to justice.

Ron Flagg:

This new report achieving civil justice highlights strategies and initiatives that are already advancing new solutions and effective models. The report also offers a roadmap for strengthening the collaboration and coordination required to achieve civil justice for all. To discuss the report, we’re joined by three members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences who have contributed to the Making Justice accessible initiative. Martha Minnow is a legal scholar and the 300th anniversary university professor at Harvard University. Martha served as the 12th dean of Harvard Law School and she co-chairs the AC Academy’s making Justice accessible project. William Hubbard is Dean and professor of law at the University of South Carolina School of Law, co-founder and board chair of the World Justice Project. He has served as president of the American Bar Association, chair of the ABAs House of Delegates and president of the American Bar Foundation and of the American Bar Endowment.

Ron Flagg:

Dan Rodriguez is the former dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and holds the Harold Washington professorship. He was the 2014 President of the Association of American Law Schools, served on the ABAs Commission on the future of Legal Services and as chair of the A BA Center on Innovation. Welcome to all of you. Thanks for being with me. The report identifies collaboration as a key to advancing access to justice. My first question is, throughout the past few decades have you seen significant changes in the types or level of collaborations that take place in the civil justice realm? William, why don’t you kick us off and then Martha and Dan, please chime in.

 William Hubbard:

Ron, thank you so much and thank you for this opportunity to speak about this critical issue. If I may for just a moment, pause and put some of this discussion in a broader context. As you mentioned in the introduction, I’ve been involved with an entity called the World Justice Project, which measures the strength and weaknesses of the rule of law in 142 countries. In our 2024 report, it was noted that the United States of America is a hundred and seventh out of 142 countries in accessibility and affordability of civil legal justice. It really is a national disgrace that we continue to have this problem, this justice gap. It undermines the essential elements of the rule of law. So I commend the academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for taking on this project and sticking with it over this past decade because of the work that it’s being created by the academy I think will change our trajectory.

 William Hubbard:

This report that we’re talking about today is so valuable because it doesn’t just discuss the theory of change, but it outlines very effective paths forward. It identifies outstanding programs and ways to sustain those programs and take those programs to scale. The report is the best resource I’ve seen to guide individuals, organizations, and institutions to address this glaring gap in our constitutional democracy. Ron, turning to your specific question, I’m most encouraged by the wonderful collaborations that are indeed taking place in the civil justice realm. 10 years ago when this project was started, we were not talking about civil justice in a holistic way. We were pretty much discussing the topic in terms of lawyers, judges, and courts. The work of the academy in this space has crystallized the imperative that we must look at civil justice more broadly and more collaboratively. I’m most encouraged that now see so many people, organizations and foundations cooperating and collaborating, law schools and legal clinics, foundations, libraries, healthcare providers, teachers and schools, social service providers, veterans organizations, specialty courts, community-based mediation centers, all playing a significant part in helping to close the justice gap. The report identifies numerous effective projects, so we’ve really seen both a significant advancement in both the types and the levels of collaboration. I am most encouraged.

Ron Flagg:

Martha, what are your thoughts?

Martha Minnow:

I am so grateful to be part of this conversation. William Hubbard’s words just now are empowering and inspiring. I think there are so many developments that are encouraging. One that is an exemplar of collaboration is Kaiser Permanente, the huge healthcare organization, decided to collaborate with the National Center for Medical Legal Partnerships and explore how to prevent homelessness and to help stable housing for people who are served in their healthcare settings. And the process has been so successful that they’ve expanded this initiative, which means that every person in their network has the opportunity to have access to legal assistance to improve their housing situation, and that’s thousands and thousands of people. It’s just a marvelous model of integration across systems.

Ron Flagg:

It sure is. I’ve had the opportunity to join panels exploring the success that that model has already had, partnering with legal aid programs funded by LSC Dan.

Daniel Rodriguez:

So thank you. And again, I echo the thanks and the gratitude to be able to play a very small part in what is a very big and very much collaborative endeavor. Where I view this report as really adding some unique value is that it does not rest primarily on a polemic on set of aspirations that are hard to attain or obtain, but instead, it is consciously and conscientiously diverse and pluralistic and pragmatic. It looks to collaboration backwards and present, meaning things that are already underway like for example, what Martha mentioned and really excavates the kinds of collaborations that are well underway, albeit collaborations that need to be scaled. It also looks at some of the challenges candidly that are faced regulatory obstacles, funding obstacles, problems that stem from our system of federalism and all of that and seeks to tackle many of those projects. And last but certainly not least throughout the report and throughout these efforts is a reliance on data-driven evidence-based approaches. One that looks at how we develop data and how we measure it. It’s one thing to call for various experiments, it’s another to basically say how can we evaluate experiments that have worked well, not so well need to be changed and shifted in a variety of ways. And where I regard the report as highly pragmatic is that it really rests on a view of the necessity and the imperative of evidence.

Ron Flagg:

That’s a great point, and you talk about the imperative. We can all be skeptical about the breadth or effectiveness of some of these existing programs, but the status quo is not acceptable. With 92% of the problems facing low income Americans, civil legal problems, getting no or inadequate assistance with legal aid turning away half of the eligible applicants who make it to our door, the status quo is not acceptable, and that really does create an imperative.

Martha Minnow:

I just want to add that what this report learned and reflects the learning from lots of conversations is that meeting people where they are and starting with the human centered approach talk with people who have legal needs or needs that they don’t know are legal. And those two principles to design any kind of help responding to what the people in their own situations experience and meeting people where they are, those two principles are game changers

Ron Flagg:

Completely. I mean we’ve spent a long time, decades, maybe centuries developing a system that was really focused created by lawyers and judges for the, I don’t know if it was necessarily for the benefit of lawyers and judges, but certainly on the assumption that lawyers would be available to help people throughout the system. And of course that assumption is false as the data we know shows. We’ve talked about the fact that this report really highlights and shines a spotlight on an existing successful projects. And again, the justice gap data I cited can be very discouraging, but increasingly as highlighted in the report, we see examples of impactful work that is really happening all across the country focusing, as you said, Martha, on the needs of the people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of our justice system. In that spirit, I wondered if each of you could highlight particularly impactful projects from the report highlighted in the report that you think our listeners should be aware of. Martha, why don’t we start with you? You’ve already mentioned the medical-legal partnership project with Kaiser. Do you have a second nominee as well?

Martha Minnow:

I’m restricted to one that’s just not fair. I mean, I can’t help but mention the kayak courts that in Utah actually are manned or person to buy attorneys and judges and social workers and community people who actually paddle on their kayaks to meet people who are on the embankment of the Jordan River. But can I also do one more? I mean, I think that the effort in the Alaska Community Justice program is so exemplary because it’s data-driven. As Dan said, it reflected an intensive effort to map where legal assistance is available and is not available all across Alaska and where are the needs and based on that identified also needs in the healthcare area and coordinated in the training of community justice workers and community health workers who are going out into these tiny villages that are very dispersed and otherwise have no access to any of those services. It’s just an extraordinary effort, data-driven and very effective and has already trained more than 500 community justice workers.

Ron Flagg:

And in fact, during a crisis with respect to access to federal food benefits led to millions of dollars being of benefits flowing to people in these small villages where as you’ve described, there are no lawyers, there will never be a lawyer, and the only way that effective help is going to be provided is by training others who are already there, who are already trusted within those communities to become subject matter experts with respect to, for example, snap and make sure that those benefits reach the intended beneficiaries. Dan, what are some of your favorite highlighted and existing projects?

Daniel Rodriguez:

Well, I’ll take the prerogative from Arthur to mention more than one, if I may. Let me focus first on one that is, I certainly wouldn’t call it old, but relative to some of these really exciting, relatively new programs has been now around for a few years, and I’m referring here to the efforts underway in Utah and Arizona. Utah developed a number of years ago so-called regulatory sandbox by changing some of their rules that would’ve interfered with and stood in the way of paraprofessionals and others providing legal services and legal representation and also provided some room and a root for law firms and some entity-based ownership of law firms that would’ve run afoul of existing model rules. Arizona did something even more far reaching in that regard, and so far a few years in we’ve seen a legacy of success. Again, the same point about data-driven is critical here.

Daniel Rodriguez:

These are experiments where they’re looking to gather data about how effective or frankly how ineffective some of these relaxation of existing regulatory roadblocks and requirements have been in. But I think while the jury is still out, it’s coming back and it’s showing that there’s been a lot of progress. The other one I’d mentioned that is really more hot off the presses, it’s actually just gotten started, is what’s called the filing fairness project, which was something that was an innovation collaboration between the Los Angeles Superior Court, which if it’s not the largest jurisdiction in the country in that regard, it’s among the largest and in the roadie Center named after the great great iconic access to justice professor and warrior, the late Deborah roadie at Stanford University. And thanks to a grant and funding collaboration between the Roadie Center and the Filing Fairness Project aspires to do two things. One is provide simplification and great help for individuals in overcoming obstacles that would stand in the way and evictions debt collection and others. And the other component part of it is to gather an enormous amount of data that thanks to the wonders of technology and all of that can actually be crunched and analyzed to find out how this experiment might actually be scaled in a way to really provide the kind of simplification that we’ve long aspired to. So we have our hopes that that’ll be a really a game changing project.

 William Hubbard:

William, I agree with Martha. The Alaska project is really a terrific project. I’ve watched it over a number of years and just I’m so grateful for the leadership that the Alaska Legal Services chapter has promulgated. The efforts have just been spectacular, and that whole idea of developing community-based justice workers I think is critical to the path forward. But if I may also pick up on the medical-legal partnership concept here at the University of South Carolina, we actually have a medical-legal partnership clinic. We coordinate with the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and the Prisma Hospital system. The dean of the medical school has indicated to me he wishes we could expand the program tenfold. There’s such a need. We focus in that clinic on children and their social determinants of health and the way the clinic operates, that the law students actually go out and have rounds with the physicians and they identify the health, the causes of the poor health in these children and then take the legal action necessary to correct those problems, those housing problems of mold or lead pain or whatever it might be, lack of heating and air conditioning, lack of ventilation.

 William Hubbard:

And what we’ve shown in that project is we did one snapshot and over seven months because the hospitals can’t release these children back to those bad environments and the children have had to stay in the hospital settings, we’ve shown that by solving the problem, alleviating the social determinant of that bad health. We save the state of South Carolina in just seven months in this one small clinic, $2 million over seven months, and we use that data point to go to the general assembly and say, give us more money to expand this program. It’s so effective. Not only does it help the children, it saves the taxpayers dollars in terms of the efficiency and the allocation of limited public resources for public health. These concepts make a big difference. I also think there’s a great economic case to be made for these kinds of programs.

Ron Flagg:

I agree with you. We’ve already talked a lot about medical-legal partnerships. It’s a tremendously effective service delivery model, and one of the reasons it’s so effective is the point that Martha made at the outset. It provides services where people are, they’re already going to health clinics. Back a decade ago in Alaska, as they were trying to think about how to solve the justice gap because of the lack of lawyers throughout much of Alaska, they created a heat map which showed where lawyers were located, which was for the most part in a few urban centers, but then they created another heat map of where healthcare providers were, and that was far more pervasive, and that showed the potential power that could be created if you could make lawyers available or make legal assistance available doesn’t have to be lawyers where people are already getting healthcare assistance.

Ron Flagg:

So whether it’s through a kiosk or community justice workers, that’s clearly a way of meeting people where they are. Dan, you mentioned the word simplification in connection with the Los Angeles Superior Court collaboration. We don’t necessarily think of technology and simplification as a natural pair, but the example you cited in the report elsewhere shows how they often go hand in hand. Another example is the document assembly line project at Suffolk University Law School’s Lit Lab that allows users to answer simple plain language questions and generate a court filing from the responses. Sometimes people are concerned that adding more technology into the mix will make things more complicated for self-represented litigants, or they have fears about AI creating complications. Again, I would point out that the status quo is not desirable, but Dan, what are your thoughts on the concern about technology and simplification all in the context of trying to address the justice gap?

Daniel Rodriguez:

Yeah, great question, Ron. And let me start actually with a comment that Martha made a bit ago, which is locating people where they are not where we would want them to be or not where we might see them through the lens of all of us experienced lawyers, et cetera, or technologists, but where they are, and I think that you use the term fear concern. That’s exactly right. There’s a great amount of trepidation among individuals who are coming into the civil justice system, whether plaintiffs, defendants, what have you, about whether technology is going to create another obstacle. So the most really interesting and innovative projects, many of which are mentioned in the report, and there are others that are underway, are ones that are utilized in existing technology, not particularly space Ag, although there’ll be technology of course, is always rapidly evolving and developing a more court friendly user-friendly approaches.

Daniel Rodriguez:

And so you mentioned the example, the development of chatbots that actually can provide, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a recipe, but a checklist of legal needs that individuals are familiar with a fairly modest amount of technology online courts, which again have, when the specter of online courts and robot judges were raised a number of years ago, folks thought, again, had fears and concerns. Covid maybe paradoxically alleviated a lot of those concerns because folks found themselves having to use technology and having to engage in online courts. There’s a professor at Stanford, Margaret Hagen, who along with the folks at stuff at you mentioned, has been really doing some really interesting work at developing user-friendly court approaches from the time that the individuals walk into the place where they’re there and to the time that they’re actually utilizing the civil justice system for their needs. So I come back to the point which you started with, which is we need to mobilize existing technology in a way that doesn’t just make the technology more effective, but makes individuals have more confidence in the ways in which that can make their needs and their wants more effective to fulfill.

Daniel Rodriguez:

And I think we have a long way to go on that, but there’s a number of projects that are focused like a laser beam on exactly that predicament.

Ron Flagg:

William, Martha, thoughts on technology?

Martha Minnow:

Well, Dan put it incredibly well. Technology is a tool and among its benefits is closing the gap that’s created by distance, but in some places technology may be actually telephones and finding a way to come up with a callback mechanism so that a hotline doesn’t keep someone who has limited minutes for their phone plan waiting, that’s a technology that’s a technological solution. Another great phenomenon that comes from collaboration between people with legal knowledge and people with TE knowledge is to actually, yes, simplify the legal requirements, to simplify the forms simply by having the conversations with people who understand what the user experience is could be transformative and already is in many legal and administrative settings.

 William Hubbard:

Part of your question, Ron, was do we have concerns about technology? And I think we all have some concerns about technology, but the fact is it’s an incredible resource. And the question is how do we use it? And I agree with Martha, we have some technologies now. I mean smartphones are really miraculous, all the different features and apps that you can put on a phone, and I can tell you from my experience, young people absolutely know how to take advantage of all those features. And so if we follow that concept of meeting people where they are in terms of a younger generation, the current Gen Xs and Y, there’s so much that can be done to access civil justice just using the smartphone, filling out forms, responding to serving people. I mean, it is unlimited what we can do with it. Now, going back though to the concept that you have to meet people where they are, many older people are actually scared of these devices.

 William Hubbard:

They freeze up when they’re prompted to do something in response to an app or something on a device. So that’s where I think we need to look at meeting people where they are by having more opportunities for face-to-face contact, particularly with some of the folks in rural areas and older clients. And that’s where the whole idea of allied legal professions professionals comes into play. And community-based justice workers give people the confidence that they’re talking to a human being who can help them with their problems. And that human being does not necessarily need to be a lawyer. And in fact, oftentimes some of these professionals who are skilled in certain specific areas of the law are more effective.

Daniel Rodriguez:

So let me make a point that hasn’t been raised, although we do talk about it a bit in the report. And again, to use your term, Ron, fears and concerns, the growing role of ai, we’ve seen the utilization of AI in the development of algorithms that has an enormous impact and I think promises to have for better or worse, and I think probably for better and worse, an enormous impact on legal outcomes, on decision making, the development of algorithms to deal with issues of credit, deal with issues of circumstances in which folks are repeat players. We’re not talking so much about the criminal justice system, but we’ve seen the use of AI and bail determinations and all of that, and folks have fears about that. And that’s not about phobia. Primarily that’s about turning over decision making from human decision makers to AI decision makers.

Daniel Rodriguez:

And I think none of us here have any panacea type answers to that, but I think these need to be approached and we need to be thinking about regulatory paradigms and the development of, again, data, big data and medium-sized data to be able to really navigate this difficult challenge of utilizing AI for the benefit of us and the benefit of the, by us, I mean individuals in the access to the civil justice system, but regulating it and controlling it in a way that doesn’t create additional concerns and additional fears that individuals have about fundamental fairness in the civil adjudicative process and criminal adjudicative process.

Martha Minnow:

Well, to connect what both William and Dan have said, there’s an importance of humans in this loop, keeping humans both in the decision-making processes but also in the provision of navigation as people’s jobs and housing and education are more and more being subject to algorithms, credit worthiness, et cetera. I similarly wanted to say that in terms of the risk aspect and promise, the growth of large language models that are plain English, you can just ask a question, outcomes and answer is potentially a huge transformation for meeting people where they are giving people a chance to get information and maybe learn how to navigate systems that are affecting them. The danger is at the moment, there’s no regulation and the quality of what people are getting back is very uncertain. And this is something where I think not just the legal profession, but anyone who cares about anybody else really should be demanding greater clarity, provenance of the data that’s used to train the large language models. And frankly, theBar needs to step up and be involved even to play a role of saying this is a reliable one and this one is not reliable.

Ron Flagg:

But again, all when we talk about theBar, the focus has got to be on not the lawyers, but the clients that we in theBar and we in the legal aid community are serving because again, with a 92% inadequate service justice gap concern about the welfare of clients has to be seen in the context where the existing system is not protecting most clients. So we need to come up with new ways of serving people where they are and where their needs are. Speaking of which, during her tenure as Michigan’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Bridget McCormick referred to Covid as the crisis that of course we didn’t want, but that civil justice dearly needed. And echoing that point, the report notes that the pandemic really changed the landscape for civil justice and the courts and propelled projects that might’ve been studied for a decade to becoming reality very quickly because there was really no other alternative. As time moves on and we get further from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, hopefully, how can we preserve the momentum that the pandemic created and keep expanding innovations and improvements? Martha, what are your thoughts?

Martha Minnow:

Such a good point. I remember distinctly talking with Chief Justice Hecht in Texas, and it was really a month after shutdowns started with Covid, and he said to me that before that time, maybe one member of the judiciary in Texas had ever used the technology that all of us now know of Zoom and other kinds of remote telecommunication. And he said within two weeks, all of the judges had trained and were using it. I think it is the silver lining of a terrible crisis that people actually adjusted and were open and even committed to exploring the possibilities of flexibility, not only with the technology, but also what people’s expectations were inside of the system about what had to happen. And remote hearings worked pretty well. I think that there are now consolidations of some of those innovations, and I’m hoping that the attitude is what persists the attitude of openness to experimentation and flexibility

Ron Flagg:

And urgency.

Martha Minnow:

Absolutely.

Ron Flagg:

William, Dan thoughts?

 William Hubbard:

Yeah, thank you Ron and Martha. I think that to really preserve this momentum and increase the momentum, I think we need to gain to take access to justice and put it in its context, the right context. You don’t hear a politician speak today from any party or either side of the aisle or from any different philosophy. Who doesn’t bandy about the concept of rule of law? Now, unfortunately, the concept is often co-opted and has been used as a tool for nefarious purposes, but I think it’s really essential that we think about access to justice as a rule of law concept and make sure the public understands that access is a fundamental tenant of the rule of law. So if we’re going to talk about the preservation of the rule of law, we have to talk about access to justice. And if you’ll permit me for just a moment to just refer to the World Justice Project’s definition of the rule of law, there are four universal principles that we’ve determined through multiple gatherings of people from around the world.

 William Hubbard:

And Universal Principle two says, the law is clear, publicized, stable, and is applied evenly. It ensures human rights as well as property contract and procedural rights. Universal principle three, the processes by which the law is adjudicated and enforced are accessible, fair and efficient. In Universal Principle four, justice is delivered by timely, competent, ethical, and independent representatives and neutrals who are accessible. So this access to justice permeates any proper definition of the rule of law, and we need to really engage in a public information effort to try to get people to understand you cannot talk about rule of law if you’re not talking about access to justice. And so I would encourage all of us to engage in that effort. We are already doing that in the law schools now. There was a great collaboration just this past year led by Heather Gerkin at Yale and over a hundred law deans have committed to these efforts. We need to start where we are. We all need to do the best we can and the location we are and in the space that we’re provided and the time we have left. So I just wanted to put that in context because if we don’t preserve the rule of law, all our quality of life and all that we hold dear is greatly weakened and diminished.

Daniel Rodriguez:

So Ron, let me, those words are profound, and that’s a hard act to follow as William’s remarks always are. But I’m glad he mentioned at the end legal education because I just wanted to make a relatively small point coming back to your question about how Covid was potentially a game changer for us during the Covid period. And all of us, of course are involved. The three of us on this panel in legal education, there were a lot of it destabilized, frankly, a lot of aspects of legal education and theBar, the A BA, in particular, the credits. Law schools along with the law schools did change their schemes in various ways. Law schools were permitted a lot more latitude for distance education and flexibility for the students, given what they’re going through. The A BA gave its imprimatur to a number, didn’t decree this, but gave its imprimatur to a number of changes in many states to provide different forms of licensure and supervision and taking theBar exam maybe in a different way or in the case of some states not having a bar exam.

Daniel Rodriguez:

And I think we could of course discuss at length the desirability of particular changes. But I think taking a step back, what it revealed was the capability of those in the American legal education system to pivot and to make adjustments in the face of crises. Now, the Covid crisis has passed, but the access to justice crisis has not passed at all. And so I think that what I certainly would welcome is the kind of innovation, flexibility, regulatory bravery, let’s say on the part of those in American legal education because again, it’s not all about lawyers, but this is the next generation of folks who are going to leave American law schools and play hopefully instrumental roles in helping close the access to justice crisis. So again, apropos of justice, McCormick’s comments, if there is a silver lining to what we learned during Covid is that we can in fact destabilize the status quo in various ways and think about making some changes that would even if indirect way, help close the access to justice gap in the form of changes in legal education.

Ron Flagg:

Last topic, the title of the report refers to achieving civil justice question is really what does that look like? The conclusion of the report says that the vision is quote, that all Americans will have the opportunity to meaningfully benefit from a justice system designed for them. Now, that’s an ambitious goal given the current data, but certainly an appropriate North Star focused on people, the intended beneficiaries of our justice system and not the convenience of lawyers or the courts or the modus operandi that lawyers or the courts used yesterday or 10 years ago. If each of you could choose one priority area for confronting the civil justice crisis and create a system where all Americans can meaningfully benefit, what would that be for you? William,

 William Hubbard:

Dan and I go back in some of these wars that emphasize that justice is not just about lawyers and judges trying to press forward resolutions in the American Bar Association House of Delegates arising out of some earlier work we did on the future of legal services and the creation of a Center for innovation at the A BA. But I think that is a real key to all of this is to try to eliminate, mitigate some of this protectionism that we’ve seen in the legal profession and emphasize that it is in the Constitution, it is in the preamble of the Constitution. The provision of justice is a national priority, and the Constitution is not just about lawyers and judges, it’s about all people. And so getting past that idea or getting through that calcification, I think is really important. And so we must, as the report clearly states, be about collaboration among people and institutions and organizations using all the talents and resources that we can bring to bear.

 William Hubbard:

I guess I would summarize by saying my first priority would be to expand and empower these allied legal professionals and community-based justice workers as they’ve done so effectively in Alaska, and then make those professionals available and accessible to libraries, hospitals, homeless shelters, churches and synagogues. In my view, a well-trained professional in domestic violence, protective orders and eviction proceedings is far better suited than a corporate m and a attorney unfamiliar with the courthouse or the relevant law to provide the appropriate kind of protection and help that a person might need. And I’m so gratified that 12 and now 13 states have moved forward with either changes in the rules and regulations about the unauthorized practice of law, or at least in the sandbox stage, to limit the application of these unauthorized practice of law statutes. As I said, a well-trained justice worker is far better than making people go it alone.

Daniel Rodriguez:

Dan, at the risk of being a little overly clever, let me say, I think the goals, let me mention three words and they all start with the letter S. One is salience, and we’ve talked about the ways that it’s been frustrating that access to civil justice has not risen in the public’s impact and understanding, and not only in the public and the political understanding. Access justice is a civil rights issue, civil rights issue. And the more we can make this issue a salient one for public officials, for interest groups, for individuals, that will be absolutely critical. And I think that reports and other efforts underway, media work will help that along. The other word is scale. Much in the report talks about these wonderful experiments we’ve mentioned. Alaska mentioned William was mentioned, South Carolina. It’s great of course, and these are wonderful experiments. Access to justice though should not depend fundamentally on where you happen to live and in the scale of these projects and the ability to make them national, not top down solutions, but to have them be leveraged in a way so that they really provide access to justice across the board is really essential.

Daniel Rodriguez:

And the last word I would say is satisfaction. It’s not just that individuals have access to the justice system, but they feel that they have access, they feel satisfied, they feel they overcome the fears and concerns that you raised and we lack of confidence individuals of modest means, and the middle class others lack of confidence in the civil justice system. So I’d say salience, scale and satisfaction, I would say are the key goals in this regard as I see it.

Ron Flagg:

Martha, final words. It

Martha Minnow:

Is correct. The US Constitution mentions established justice right in the very first sentence. I think that actually as we head towards the anniversary of the founding of this country, we have to renew that commitment not only to establish justice, but to make justice accessible. That requires putting humans at the center. That requires actually listening to the expectations that people legitimately have for being treated fairly. And that also means making clear this is not just the problem for lawyers, as William said, it can’t just be left to lawyers to provide the help. I would add it can’t be left to lawyers to make justice accessible. And we’ve talked here the role that people with expertise in technology can play, the role that people who live in local communities where there are no lawyers can play. If I had one more, perhaps less sizzling comment to make, though it would be about evidence and acting on evidence, acting on how to scale based on experiments.

Martha Minnow:

In Dan’s line of thinking, the medical profession has offered many examples to us, and we really should learn in 1900, you were more likely to die if you went to a hospital than if you didn’t. And how did things change? They change because of evidence-based practices, and it’s time that the justice world pursue that approach. There’s more and more efforts, and with technology, we can gather data and we can integrate it. We can have real time information about where to direct resources. So I’m hopeful, but I do think justice will require a renewal, not just looking to the past, but looking to the future.

Ron Flagg:

William Hubbard, Martha Minnow, Dan Rodriguez, thank you for devoting your careers, not just the last hour to achieving justice. Thank you for joining me today to talk about this important new report. We will link the report in our episode notes so that our listeners can see the full report and review it for themselves. Thanks to our listeners for tuning into this episode of Talk Justice. Please subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Stay Well.

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