This week I was tied up at the Legal Service Corporation’s annual “ITC” Conference (ITC stands for Innovations in Technology Conference, so when I say “ITC Conference” I’m saying Conference twice.) Basically it’s a big gathering of legal aid and non-profit technology folks, with talks and sessions focused on things like online intake, triage portals, websites, and other riveting stuff. I’ll get to my initial impressions in a moment - I’m writing this from the airport, so my takes are nice and fresh.
The LawDroid AI Conference:
On Tuesday I was part of a panel on AI and Legal Aid for the all-day LawDroid AI Conference. Tom Martin, coincidentally one of the nicest guys in legal technology, put on a completely free online conference completely focused on AI and law. On my panel were Amanda Brown, the Director of Lagniappe Law Lab, and Natalie Knowlton, the Director of A2J Ventures. So I was just kind of along for the ride with to really smart people. If Tom Martin puts on another conference put it on your calendar - this one was great.
The Pre-Conference:
I was also invited to a one-day “Technology Summit” put on by LSC with around 50-ish folks from all over. This was run by a consulting company for LSC to basically do, well, this:
On Wednesday, January 31, 2024, we will convene to participate in an engaging day-long workshop to promote knowledge sharing, networking, and innovative thinking. Your unique expertise and perspectives are invaluable as we explore the rapidly evolving landscape of technology and its potential to improve the delivery of civil legal services and advance access to justice. Insights gathered will play a pivotal role in informing our collective discourse and shaping the trajectory of our work.
Basically this was run like a big workshop, where we split up into groups and discussed the current problem-scape and technology-scape and other scapes. We didn’t really come to any ground-breaking solution-scapes, so unfortunately for everyone I’ll keep writing this Substack for the forseable future.
I will say that when one of the consultants gave a presentation on technology and started talking about crypto-currency and Bitcoin I was tempted to laugh out loud, but instead I settled for passive-aggressively crossing those out on the corresponding handout, and then also passive-aggressively griping about it here. I’m not sure what the point of this presentation about technology was, other than consultants are physically required to give at least one powerpoint presentation per day or they stop existing.
The longer I’m in this business the more I realize there are no “a-ha!” moments, and I’m not expecting this day-long session to result in any. But we’ll see.
AI? Ai. aI.
As you can probably imagine, AI was the new hotness at the ITC Conference (and day-long pre-conference). I even gave a presentation about it, which I won’t bore you with, but suffice to say everyone in legal aid technology is thinking about it. Seems like people fall somewhere on a scale of “Fuck No” to “Fuck Yes,” with the majority of people sort of in the middle, a kind of “Well sure maybe but I have some serious concerns.” Which is where I think people need to be TBQH.
I remember at this same conference last year, ChatGPT hadn’t really hit the scene in a big way, and the LinkedInfluencers hadn’t truly cranked up the AI take factory to maximum production, so it was kind of a topic back then but not really. My what difference a year makes.
One thing that’s for certain is that self-represented people are already using it, at least know that some are, and we’re not really sure what kind of help they’re getting from it, or if the state regulators are going to try and regulate the hell out of it. I guess we’ll know when we know.
Cell phones in bushes:
One thing that stuck out to me at the conference: in many places, people (non-lawyers) that are going into court aren’t allowed to take in their cell phones. There’s no lockers for their phones, and many people took the bus, so they’re literally having to hide them in the bushes outside of the courthouse entrance. For many people their cell phone is their library and evidence gathering tool. Will AI solve this? That’s a rhetorical question by the way.
Before we start with technology I think we need to have a serious discussion about what the process looks like from a practical perspective. If you’re interested in A2J technology and haven’t spent a day at your local courthouse, you should do that immediately. It’s very eye-opening.
I’ll probably have more ITC-thoughts later, so stay tuned.
Why do doctors still use pagers?
This is from a few months ago, but is a genuinely fascinating article about a hospital that tried to get their doctors to stop using pagers and use a mobile notification system on their cell phones.
PEABODY: You get these residents that literally are wearing, like, a Rambo-looking ammunition thing of the multiple pagers. And so when one of them goes off, you see this frantic searching of the Rambo belt, pulling the pagers off to try to silence the one that's beeping so much.
FOUNTAIN: This whole system was a mess, and it probably wasn't great for the patients either. At the time, the hospital was really concerned about how long it took for the patients in the ER to get treated and sent on their way. Mary and Toph thought this slow, inefficient paging system was part of the problem.
TLDR: the hospital tried replacing the doctor’s pagers with a phone app, and it failed miserably. It wasn’t that the doctors were some kind of technophobes, but it turns out that just changing what you think is an outdated technology for a better / newer one has many downstream effects that aren’t typically accounted for. One professor has come up with a mnemonic for those effects: RHIP (Risks, Habits, Identity, Power).
GUO: Then there's I for identity. That's about how new technology can change how you feel about your job. Michaela says, if you're a doctor, a pager can feel like a symbol of your doctorness in a way that a phone can't. Patients see it the same way. You pull up your pager in front of a patient, they know you're doing doctor work. Pull out your phone, they think, I don't know, maybe you're texting your friends, sliding into someone's Insta DMs.
I found this article to be really compelling stuff, especially thinking about how I’ve criticized courts and organizations in the past for lagging behind technologically.
Until next time, stay frosty, friends.