As part of our Redesigning Legal Speaker Series, on December 7 IAALS and its partners explored the opportunities being created by regulatory innovation for legal education.
Video of the event is available below, and a video with transcript is available here. Read a recap here.
Regulatory reform is taking hold across the country—Utah and Arizona have already enacted sweeping changes to how legal services can be delivered and who can provide them, and no fewer than 10 other states are currently in different stages of exploring, recommending, or implementing regulatory changes. More are sure to follow.
This program explored the opportunities being created by regulatory innovation for legal education. Panelists focused on how law schools are responding and adapting to the prospect of fewer barriers to innovation that offer increased employment opportunities for their students, more roles for people other than lawyers in the delivery of legal services, the creation of tiered legal service providers, and collaboration across professional fields to provide more and new kinds of legal services.
This panel included Stacy Butler (Director of the Innovation for Justice Program, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law), Anna Carpenter (Professor of Law and Director of Clinical Programs, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law), April Dawson (Associate Dean of Technology and Innovation, North Carolina Central University School of Law), and Michele Pistone (Professor of Law and Director of the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law), whose conversation was moderated by Jordan Furlong (Principal, Law21).
Approved for one hour of Colorado CLE credit.
Stacy Butler has two decades of experience in community advocacy and expanding the reach of civil legal services for under-served populations. Prior to launching the i4J Program, she worked in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona and served as an adjunct professor at University of Arizona Law. In 2017, she launched Step Up to Justice, a pro bono civil legal center that has delivered over $3 million in free civil legal services to low-income families. She earned a BA from Trinity University and a JD from the University of Arizona. Butler was named one of the Top 50 Pro Bono Attorneys in Arizona in 2006, 2014, and 2015.
Anna Carpenter is a professor of law and the director of clinical programs at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. She founded and directs the Justice Lab, a legal clinic where students help client organizations solve complex problems and advocate for systemic change. Professor Carpenter’s scholarship includes empirical and theoretical work on access to justice and the role of lawyers, nonlawyers, and judges in the civil justice system. She also writes on legal education and clinical pedagogy. Professor Carpenter is the recipient of the 2021 Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award.
Michele Pistone is a professor of law and directs and teaches the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES). She founded the law school’s in-house clinical program, which she built and directed for nine years. Professor Pistone has also taught at Georgetown University Law Center, twice as a visiting professor at American University Washington College of Law, and as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Malta.
Jordan Furlong is an internationally renowned legal sector analyst, author, speaker, and consultant, deeply invested in a better future for the legal profession and the society it serves. Over the past 20 years, Jordan has forecast critical new developments in the legal ecosystem and has addressed thousands of lawyers across four continents about the rapidly evolving legal services market. Based in Ottawa, Canada, Jordan is currently focused on serving clients in the areas of lawyer formation, education, and licensing, as well as legal services regulation.