This podcast with Cat Moon, Ron Flagg, and Bob Ambrogi really got me thinking about what we can actually do about the “Legal Tech Justice Gap.” It’s a great episode, and worth listening to the whole thing, but I’m going to pull some excerpts for your reading pleasure:
Cat Moon:
One obvious thing that occurs to me, and this is maybe more on the individual level, but I think it’s cultural, is how we actually conceive of pro bono, right? So the main way lawyers think about how they give back and how they help people who can’t otherwise afford their help is through pro bono. And that model is essentially one-to-one delivery of legal services. So for example, an attorney in a big law firm can get pro bono credit with their firm and with their board of professional responsibility. However that is tracked if they go to a legal clinic and volunteer their time that perhaps legal aid has sponsored.
However, if that same attorney works with a legal aid organization to develop a platform that serves many people, odds are that the firm’s not going to recognize that as pro bono service, their regulatory board’s not going to recognize it as pro bono service.
…
Bob Ambrogi:
We all talk about lawyers pro bono obligations, but maybe some of these larger companies in this sector have some obligations to be doing more in this sector. I mean, maybe starting even with the investors, VCs and private equity, I know it sounds counterintuitive, but maybe they should in fact be more intentionally allocating some money to access to justice causes. It doesn’t have to be a lot out of all the money they’re putting into legal tech. If they took just a fraction of that and put it toward access to justice tech, it could make a big difference.
I really like this discussion, but I want to propose something different (and maybe better) than giving legal aids money or technology. But first, I want to give you some background:
Some background:
One of the cool things that companies in the tech sector do is offer pro bono consulting, tech help, and guidance to non-profits. Google.org is a good example of this (granted, Google has more money laying around than any god humanity could invent). Basically Google.org is kind of a funding plus consulting arm, where Google will partner with a non-profit to help them build out a new tech solution or improve an existing one. Google doesn’t just throw money at these non-profits - they provide people power through things like the Google.org Fellowship, or through one of their other programs. Googlers are able to provide their expertise in different areas like project management, product-market fit, UX/UI design and user research, computer programming and development, and so on. Full disclosure - I’m currently working on an AI project through Google.org with JusticiaLab, and it’s been an incredible experience (and made me realize how talented the people at Google are).
Here’s a little secret about most legal aid organizations: they tend to staff with legal professionals, because they’re usually focused on direct service. They’re often lacking personnel and expertise in areas like project management, tech development, product management, UX/UI design, and so on. It’s vanishingly rare for a legal aid organization to have a Jonathan Pyle or a Gwen Daniels on staff. Also, tech talent is expensive to hire, and legal aids typically don’t have the money to pay tech people as much as Google does (or give them as many good free snacks - Google, if you’re reading this, I will work for cheap if you throw in the free snacks. Let’s talk).
It’s also true that legal aids don’t have the ability to afford the same technology as, say, Reed Smith or Baker McKenzie, but just giving a legal aid free access to an e-discovery platform or a global contract management suite isn’t going to do them much good. Legal aids simply don’t have the same technological needs as an Am-Law 100 firm.
A lot of the suggestions from the tech world involve giving legal tech products to the A2J world for free. <sigh> As I told one of my correspondents today, I don’t like always telling people that they have bad ideas but I also don’t like seeing bad ideas implemented.
There’s an old saying that free technology is like a free puppy: it seems like a great idea at the time, but can result in an insane amount of upkeep, maintenance, and inconvenience (and can even poop all over your house).
A proposal:
What if we had something like a “Google.org for legal technology?” Granted we don’t have legal tech companies that are as big as Google, Meta, or Microsoft, so maybe we could pool our resources and do things a little bit differently. Here’s what that could look like:
We’d need an umbrella organization to take charge of this - ILTA1 makes the most sense to me since most of the big legal tech companies are members and they seem pretty active.
The program would look something like:
A legal aid org applies for a the program through ILTA, with something like a description of their need and the project that they’re trying to accomplish. Kind of like applying to a tech accelerator.
Timeframe would be 6 or 9-month-long engagement;
ILTA helps identify what needs the legal aid has for tech and professional services, and then pulls the team together from volunteers from its member organizations;
I’d think a typical volunteer team would be 3 people:
Project manager
UI / UX
Tech consultant / developer
The team then helps the legal aid scope out and plan their project, give guidance on planning, help them with creating user journeys & personas, etc.
Total commitment from the volunteers would be something like 0-5 hours per week during the engagement, all pro bono.
At the end there would be some deliverable that the volunteers help the legal aid work toward, anything from an MVP product to an awesome project plan and draft SOW (scope of work).
On the legal tech company side, I think this is a much easier ask than just a dollar amount - for one thing it’s great press, but it also builds their staff’s expertise in different areas as well. For legal aids it could be something very effective, since they’re getting actionable help with their projects instead of spinning their wheels.
So, if you’re reading this and think this sounds like a good idea and want to help me move this forward let me know. I’d really like to see if this is a concept that we could get off the ground and do some good.
Not the International Liquid Terminals Association. I don’t know what those are, and they sound boring.
Dear friends! Do you have a vision or specific proposal of how ILTA could be involved? The Board is meeting next weekend, and we would love to discuss this topic in general as well as any specific ideas. Thanks, @cat moon, @bob ambrogi, and @ron Flagg.
hey i’ll build it with you