Transforming the Delivery of Legal Services: Unveiling the Above the Line Network
On February 27, IAALS and The Chicago Bar Foundation examined the widespread access to justice crisis—which extends beyond low-income individuals to heavily impact the middle class and small businesses—and showcased how the newly launched Above the Line Network can bridge the gap for affordable legal services.
The crisis in access to justice extends far beyond low-income people, impacting people well into the middle class as well as small businesses that are the anchors of communities throughout the country. While most organized access to justice efforts rightly focus on low-income people who are especially vulnerable, we can never achieve our nation’s ideal of equal justice for all when middle-class people—who make up more than 50% of the nation’s population—and small businesses struggle to find quality, affordable legal services. Greater education and advocacy for the underserved middle class has the potential for heightening the issues of access to justice as a broad societal crisis and driving an increase in innovation and funding in support of closing the access to justice gap for all. There are some promising programs and models tackling this problem around the United States, Canada, and beyond, and the new Above the Line Network (ATLN) will bring them together to help them grow, thrive, and replicate, and foster advocacy for the middle class in the larger access to justice circles.
This webinar was the first in a two-part project launch series and focused on understanding the breadth of the access to justice crises, introducing the newly launched Above the Line Network, and hearing from experts in the field on how the legal profession can come together through ATLN to increase access to affordable legal help to the middle class.
