Time: 1:00 – 2:00 PM ET
Part of the webinar series AI, Access to Justice & UPL: Shaping the Future of Legal Services.
The second webinar in the series offers a fulsome examination of Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL), exploring its foundational elements and practical implications. The session begins by analyzing UPL's three core functions: maintaining professional integrity, insulating the legal profession, and creating deterrent effects. This analysis includes critical discussion of how UPL regulations intersect with the significant legal services gap affecting low and middle-income populations. Participants will gain insight into the substantial variations in how UPL is defined, regulated across different jurisdictions, and enforced in practice. The session concludes with discussion of the distinction between legal advice and legal information, helping attendees understand this fundamental boundary in legal service delivery.
Watch the Recording:
Speakers:
Jim Sandman, President Emeritus, Legal Services Corporation; Distinguished Lecturer and Senior Consultant to the Future of the Profession Initiative, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
James (Jim) Sandman is Chair of IAALS’ Board of Advisors and Chair of IAALS’s Executive Committee; and President Emeritus of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States. Sandman was President of LSC from 2011 to 2020. Sandman is Distinguished Lecturer and Senior Consultant to the Future of the Profession Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Sandman practiced law for 30 years with the international, Washington-based law firm of Arnold & Porter. He served as the firm’s Managing Partner for ten years. He has served as General Counsel of the District of Columbia Public Schools and is a past President of the 118,000-member District of Columbia Bar.
Natalie Knowlton, Founder, Access to Justice Ventures; legal innovation expert; Former Director of Special Projects, IAALS
Natalie Anne Knowlton is the Associate Director of Legal Innovation at the Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School and Founder of Access to Justice Ventures, empowering entrepreneurs who are developing scalable access to justice solutions. Knowlton spent many years prior at IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver. She is a 2023 ABA Journal Legal Rebel and is listed among the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center’s 2022 Women of Legal Tech. She sits on the Justice Technology Association Advisory Board and the Legal Aid of North Carolina Innovation Lab Advisory Board. She is also a judge for the American Legal Technology Awards (Access to Justice category).
Lois R. Lupica, Lead Designer of the Community Access + Legal Innovation Lab, Community Economic Defense Project and the Maine Law Foundation; Professor of Law, Emerita, University of Maine School of Law
Lois R. Lupica is the Lead Designer of the Community Access + Legal Innovation Lab at the Community Economic Defense Project and the Maine Law Foundation Professor of Law, Emerita, at the University of Maine School of Law. She served as Director of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law's Legal Innovation Lab from 2020-2024. In 2019 she received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award where she researched access to justice and technology at the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia. Professor Lupica is an Affiliated Faculty member of the Harvard Law School Access to Justice Lab, Co-Principal Investigator of the Financial Distress Research Study, and Co-Principal Investigator of the Princeton Debt Lab. She also served as Visiting Scholar at the Colorado Law & Policy Center, and she is a published researcher and legal writer.
Quinten Steenhuis, Co-Director, Legal Innovation and Technology Lab, Suffolk University Law School; Founder and CEO, Lemma Legal Consulting
Quinten Steenhuis is the co-director of the Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation and Technology Lab and founder and CEO of Lemma Legal Consulting. His work focuses on closing the access to justice gap with technology, especially interactive tools that help people who cannot afford an attorney. Quinten’s work has been recognized by national media, including the ABA Journal and the New York Times. In 2022, his work on the tool Massachusetts Defense for Eviction was recognized in a joint press release by the White House and the Department of Justice. He has been named and ABA “Legal Rebel” and an honoree of the Fastcase 50 award.
Moderator:
Jeff Ward, Director, Duke Center on Law & Tech
Jeff Ward teaches Contracts as well as courses at the intersection of law, emerging tech, and ethics such as Frontier A.I. & Robotics: Law & Ethics and Future of Contracts at Duke Law. In his role as Director of the Duke Center on Law & Tech, he oversees programs that include the Duke Law Tech Lab, a pre-accelerator program for early-stage legal tech companies; Duke Law By Design, which uses design methodologies to help ensure that new technologies ultimately empower and ennoble all people and expand access to quality legal services; and RAILS, a network dedicated to Responsible AI in Legal Services. He is a Faculty Affiliate at both the Initiative for Science & Society and the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke, where he teaches Legal, Ethical, and Societal Implications of Artificial Intelligence and other courses.