Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast: Talking AI for Access to Justice at the 25th Innovations in Technology Conference
Contact
Carl Rauscher
Director of Communications and Media Relations
rauscherc@lsc.gov
202-295-1615
WASHINGTON— Recorded live from the 25th annual Innovations in Technology Conference (ITC), legal tech experts discuss their artificial intelligence (AI) projects and AI’s future potential for expanding legal services on the latest episode of LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast. Host Cat Moon is joined by Lisa Colpoys, senior consultant for the AI Initiative at the Lawyer’s Trust Fund of Illinois, and Sateesh Nori, senior legal innovation strategist for Just-Tech.
The live podcast recording at ITC took place in Phoenix, Arizona on January 14. At the conference, more than 700 professionals from legal, tech and other backgrounds gathered to attend panels and join conversations about access to justice, legal aid, courts and the evolving role of technology. AI was a major theme at the conference, where more than 300 people also attended a pre-conference AI Summit.
Nori has been a legal services lawyer in New York City for 22 years. He explained that while he is proud to have represented around a thousand clients, over time he became disheartened by the number of people he had to turn away—probably ten times as many as he could serve. To Nori, AI presents a way for lawyers to lighten the burdens of repetitive, cumbersome tasks like paperwork, while dedicating more time to “the questions that require our intelligence and creativity and skill.”
“For the first time in my career, I'm seeing a path forward out of the kind of mess of intake and triage that we're all stuck in—a way forward that allows us to do that type of work that only we can do,” Nori said.
Colpoys added that beyond the potential for AI to improve legal aid efficiency and expand access, she also sees the potential for improving the mental health of legal aid lawyers who are “bogged down by the burdensome drudgery of filling out forms or the things that [they] didn't go to law school to do.”
In her role as senior consultant for the AI Initiative at the Lawyer’s Trust Fund of Illinois, Colpoys is working to create educational content for legal services providers about uses for AI, as well as facilitating peer learning opportunities.
“The goals of the AI Initiative are to help support legal aid organizations and legal aid lawyers in Illinois as they begin to learn about and explore AI technology and tools, and as they begin to determine how they're going to deploy them in their organizations and in their legal practices,” said Colpoys.
Colpoys is also working to develop a roadmap for organizations as they begin to engage with AI vendors.
“What I've heard is that they're not sure kind of what's lurking in the shadows with AI, even if they do have experience negotiating tech contracts, and so I'm working with pro bono counsel to create guidance and a checklist,” Colpoys said.
Earlier this month, Nori’s team at Just-Tech launched Roxanne AI, a chatbot for tenants seeking information about how to address repairs needed in their homes. According to him, this is an area of significant need in New York, because legal aid triage prioritizes evictions over issues like mold and heating, making it difficult for tenants to receive assistance on seeking repairs.
A complicating factor of this kind of AI tool is Unlicensed Practice of Law restrictions. Nori described Just-Tech’s approach as threading-the-needle of providing “actionable legal information” that does not cross the line into legal advice. He views Roxanne as an upstream solution to housing issues.
“If you think about it more broadly, these types of upstream solutions are critically important to us,” Nori said. “Why are there so many people lined up outside legal services offices seeking help? Because there's no upstream solutions. Many of the problems they're facing could have been resolved if they had information about how to address those problems earlier.”
The next episode of Talk Justice, releasing on Feb. 11, will be the show’s 100th installment.
Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, YouTube, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.