News & Updates

Last week, IAALS and our project partner HiiL cohosted a series of virtual Justice Data Lab meetings with our US Justice Needs Advisory Committee and a few additional partners. In August launched the individual survey of legal problems, receiving responses from 10,000 individuals from across the United States, and we are now analyzing the data.

IAALS is deeply saddened by the news of Paula Littlewood’s passing, and we extend our sympathies to her family, friends, and colleagues. Paula’s partnership with IAALS was long and deep, and we will sorely miss her.

Earlier this year, Paula Littlewood was a guest on ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels podcast where she spoke about how she came to be an advocate for re-regulation, the need for lawyers to engage the public when it comes to regulatory changes, and Washington’s pioneering limited legal license technician program.

It’s time that the delivery of legal services reflected the reality of innovation and progress we see in every other field—medical, financial, engineering, and everything in between—giving everyone greater access to legal services.

On October 27, IAALS and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law co-hosted a virtual discussion featuring Crispin Passmore, Will Morrison, and Abigail Moy—moderated by David Lat—who addressed how legal regulations in other countries have allowed for greater accessibility to the justice system and increased innovation among service providers.

In September, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences released Civil Justice for All, a report offering seven recommendations geared toward closing the justice gap, with an emphasis on bringing many new advocates—service providers who are not lawyers—into the effort.

In a groundbreaking report, IAALS, in partnership with Professor Deborah Merritt at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, has defined the minimum competence that new lawyers need to be qualified to practice law—and provides recommendations for how legal licensing processes like the bar exam must change to be more fair to bar applicants and to better protect the public.

Courts around the country are focused on staying open to ensure access to justice is available; however, with so many doing so much, we need to ensure cross-pollination of these varied ideas by sharing knowledge and combining our collective intellectual capacity across the various silos within our system.

Many states, including California, are exploring regulatory reform as a means through which to drive innovation in the legal services sector and increase access to justice. The public is rarely involved in these discussions, however, and the critical consumer perspective is missing.

The legal profession is fraught with systemic barriers to entry that form ripple effects on the road to becoming a lawyer. The pathway is much like narrow pipeline—entry is limited and every segment is springing leaks, disproportionately affecting people of color along the way—creating a profession that is among the least diverse in the country.

Last month, the Arizona Supreme Court voted unanimously to eliminate its ethics rules barring nonlawyers from having an economic interest in law firms or participating in fee-sharing, and streamlined advertising rules. The court also approved the licensing of “Legal Paraprofessionals," who will be able to represent clients in court.

In a recent op-ed, IAALS Founding Executive Director Rebecca Love Kourlis and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch commend recent legal regulatory reforms in Utah and Arizona and call for more states across the country to make similar bold changes.

IAALS' Law Jobs: By the Numbers tool, an effort to provide a new perspective on law school rankings, will sunset in September 2020. The project was an integral part of our journey to our current work, empowering many across the country to build, analyze, and compare employment outcomes among law schools, with over 116,000 calculations being made since launching in 2013.

On August 20, IAALS and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law co-hosted a virtual discussion with Rohan Pavuluri, Andrea S. Jarmon, and Andrew Arruda, who covered issues of racial injustice in both legal education and the profession, as well as what regulatory reform actually looks like in action.

IAALS and HiiL recently launched the largest-ever survey of its kind as part of their US Justice Needs project. This survey will reach people across all regions of the United States, including urban and rural areas and people who have not historically been included, and seek to uncover their experiences in accessing justice when they need it.

The Chicago Bar Association and Chicago Bar Foundation Task Force on the Sustainable Practice of Law and Innovation is one of the latest groups to issue a set of recommendations that seek to address the growing disconnect between the public’s legal needs and the lawyers who can serve them. The task force is accepting public comment on these recommendations through August 21.

Last week, in a historic vote, the Utah Supreme Court voted unanimously to establish a regulatory sandbox for nontraditional legal services providers in order to address the state’s access to justice crisis. These rule changes will allow individuals and entities to explore creative ways to safely allow the practice of law and reduce constraints on how lawyers market and promote their services.

Studies show that up to 80 percent of Americans’ civil legal needs go unmet—and that will likely grow due to the pandemic. Change cannot wait any longer. It is time for us to reimagine the ways in which legal services in our country are delivered, and leaders across the profession are calling for immediate action.

On June 25, IAALS and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law co-hosted a virtual discussion with William Henderson, law professor and an ABA Journal Legal Rebel, who laid out how and why the current legal regulatory system is no longer working and why state supreme courts are best positioned to pioneer new regulatory models.

The California Board of Trustees is meeting today to consider the charter and composition of the Closing the Justice Gap Working Group. We at IAALS applaud the board for creating the working group and committing to move forward with important and innovative legal services solutions, but we strongly encourage them to significantly diversify its membership.