Redesigning Legal: The Ecosystem of Legal Service Providers—A Holistic Approach to Access to Justice

As part of our Redesigning Legal Speaker Series, IAALS and its partners examined the various legal service providers beyond lawyers who help people with their legal problems, and discussed why it will take this entire ecosystem to fully tackle the access to justice crisis.

Allied legal professional programs are spreading across the country. These professionals are providing legal services where self-representation is greatest—family law, debt collection, and landlord/tenant cases—and at around half the cost of the average attorney. To truly combat the access to justice crisis, though, it will take an entire ecosystem of legal service providers. This program highlighted a few of the providers within this ecosystem—community advocates and legal aid community justice workers, along with allied legal professionals—and examined who they are, what they do, and how they are vital to providing access to all.