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Legal‑aid leaders at ITC: standards, funding and digital literacy are key to scaling access‑to‑justice technology
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Summary
At the Innovations in Technology Conference closing session, legal‑aid technology leaders said e‑filing, data security, shared standards and digital‑literacy work are necessary to scale tools that help low‑income litigants. Speakers warned that funding models and jurisdictional fragmentation remain major hurdles.
Jason Tasche, host of the Talk Justice podcast, convened a closing‑session conversation at the Innovations in Technology Conference on how to translate promising access‑to‑justice technology into scalable services.
"Equal access to justice is a core American value," Tasche said at the episode's start, framing the session's goal of moving innovations from demos to durable services.
Quintin Steinhaus, a clinical fellow at Suffolk University School of Law, said one clear lesson came from Michigan Legal Help's data work: online use of a domestic‑violence protection order form rose during the pandemic while clerk filings fell, but filings improved after the project added email‑based filing. "They did turn those numbers around when they added email," Steinhaus said, arguing that integrating forms to courts electronically is a practical step to close the gap between online intake and official filings.
Vivian Hessel, chief information officer at Legal Aid Chicago, said data security was a pervasive theme across sessions. "Everybody was talking about [data security]," Hessel said, adding that pandemic‑era changes and more sophisticated threats mean legal‑aid programs must build stronger protections as they scale services.
Terry Ross, executive director of Illinois Legal Aid Online, pushed the panel to consider digital literacy on the client side. "Everyone owns a phone, but do people know how to use it to access the browser?" Ross asked, noting that user comfort with channels and basic navigation must inform design and outreach so technology does not become a barrier to access.
Panelists emphasized human‑centered design and collaboration. Hessel described sessions where designers, advocates and technologists worked together to build forms, intake flows and questions that meet clients' needs rather than retrofit systems after launch. Steinhaus and others recommended starting with minimal viable products, iterating and sharing failures as community learning rather than stigmatized setbacks.
Funders were a recurring concern. Ross said many grantors expect measurable success, which can discourage experimentation. "It's lessons," Ross said of unsuccessful pilots, urging funders to view early iterations as shared community knowledge. Steinhaus suggested framing early releases as intentionally partial to lower the risk of harmful outcomes while enabling real‑user testing.
The group also raised systemic barriers: Illinois's fragmented court system — "101 different ways to do things based on the counties," Ross said — makes statewide scaling labor‑intensive because local filing rules and processes must be mapped and maintained. Steinhaus noted the national scale challenge as even larger, saying, "50 states, we might have 50,000 jurisdictions," to underscore why shared data standards and API‑based integration are essential.
The National Center for State Courts' court‑data standard surfaced in the discussion as one promising step toward interoperability, and panelists urged more common visual and written language across tools so litigants encounter familiar flows when moving between resources.
On remote hearings, Ross said COVID forced courts to adopt remote appearances statewide in Illinois and that some changes are likely to stay because judges and lawyers have embraced options. He cautioned, however, that some communities have reverted to in‑person practices for local reasons — an example he offered was a small county where attorneys preferred returning to the courthouse.
The episode closed with practical next steps panelists said they use at their organizations: formal 'shareback' programs after conferences, deliberate piloting of selected ideas, and ongoing collaboration to adapt tools to local needs. Tasche thanked the guests and reminded listeners the podcast is sponsored by the Legal Services Corporation.
The discussion left several clear lines for follow‑up: align on data standards and interoperability, fund more iterative pilots with explicit permission to learn from limited releases, invest in client digital‑literacy supports, and build searchable shared repositories of projects and lessons to reduce redundant 'one‑off' efforts.
