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NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO INCREASE SUPPLY. Equal Justice and the Digital Revolution: Using Technology to Meet the Legal Needs of Low-Income People. By Julia Gordon. The Project for the Future of Equal Justice.
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NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO INCREASE SUPPLY
Equal Justice and the Digital Revolution: Using Technology to Meet the Legal Needs of Low-Income People By Julia Gordon
The Project for the Future of Equal Justice • A Joint Effort of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) • Objectives: • Educate and deliver information to managers and advocates • Spur innovation and experimentation • Evaluate new tools • Create a vibrant community of legal services technologists
How New Technologies Serve the Goal of Equal Justice • Improve Program and Office Management • Intake • Case Management Systems • Data Collection • Document Assembly • Remote Representation • Staff and Volunteer Recruiting
How New Technologies Serve the Goal of Equal Justice • Improving Client Education, Preventing Legal Problems, and Assisting Pro Se Litigants • Information for Low-Income People and Communities • www.peoples-law.org • Hotlines
How New Technologies Serve the Goal of Equal Justice • Increasing Access to Assistance and Information to Advocates • Research • Training • www.m-i-e.org/services/listserv.htm • Communications and Community
Project Recommendations: • Broaden the funding base for technology related work • Address substantive issues at the intersection of technology policy and low income communities • Provide community legal education and assist pro se litigants • Create a culture of information sharing • Develop better and more integrated technologies and applications • Make a higher commitment to technology on an organization level • Evaluate the use of new technologies • Work collaboratively to plan, execute, and support technology-based work
Technology, Values, and the Justice System: The Common Law Process: A New Look at an Ancient Value Delivery System By Dennis J. Sweeney
How the Common Law System Works • Common law develops slowly and uncertainly, but technology is neither slow nor conservative. • Principles do not become alive until they are applied to a societal dispute. • In modern common law analysis, the rule frequently originates outside of the judicial system such as constitutions, statutes, law reviews, and treatises. • If access to justice is to be a reality, where will the guiding principles come from?
Access to Technology Bill of Rights www.atjtechbillofrights.org
ATJ-TBoR Mission: “To create a body of enforceable fundamental principles to ensure that current and future technology both increases opportunities and eliminates barriers to access to and effective utilization of the justice system, thereby improving the quality of justice for all persons in Washington State.”
ATJ-TBoR Concerns • Technology can provide increased pathways for access to justice, but it can also create significant barriers. • Those the tools and means will get further ahead and those without fall further behind in having the justice system work for them. The lack of equality gets greater, not less. • Will technology erode fundamental rights such as the right to privacy? • Greater access to information creates greater possibility for intrusions upon privacy.
ATJ-TBoR Concerns • Assuring a Neutral Forum • Developments in technology may generate alternative dispute resolution systems that are not neutral, accessible and transparent, but which, nevertheless, attract users who seek the advantages of available technology.
ATJ-TBoR Committee Goals • Increase both access to the justice system and the quality and equality of justice delivered to all persons and groups within our scope of service and influence. • Develop, declare, adopt and implement a living body of just principles which permeate and influence the justice system. • Accomplish the foregoing in a manner that is thoughtful, balanced and connected to the realities of life, with implementation that is practical and takes into account and guides consequences.
How Can the ATJ-TBoR help in achieving access to justice? • The ATJ-TBoR will provide the courts with a new source of legal principles upon which to draw in a common law system. • The principles will provide judges with the ability to craft rulings that do not impede access to the justice system and may enhance the access of the poor to the system. • The principles will assure that: • “…technology, and the advance of technology, do not erode fundamental rights,” like privacy, the right to travel, the right to a fair trial, and the right of access to the courts. • Existing and emerging technologies do not undermine well established rights.
What is your reaction to the ATJ-TBoR? • Can it help achieve access to justice? • Will the courts apply the principles it suggests? • Any other concerns about the use of increasing technologies in the legal system?
Other Websites Employing new Technologies • www.futurelawoffice.com • www.techsoup.org • www.probono.net • www.lstech.org