LegalServer Participates in Technology Summit

Legal Services Corporation (LSC) convened the 2012 Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice on June 21-22 in Silver Spring, Md. Nearly 50 participants — including the founder of LegalServer, IV Ashton — met to explore the potential of technology to move the United States toward providing service of some form to all with a legal need.

The summit is the first of two planned gatherings for 2012. A follow-up summit is targeted for the fall, and will focus on implementation. Fourteen white papers were produced in advance of the summit and were used to focus the discussion. They will be published, some in print and the rest online, by the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology.

The summit kicked off with LSC President James J. Sandman challenging the group to “think big” in considering how technology might be used to make the legal process more accessible to clients, how to “get the biggest bang for our buck,” and how to maximize communication and cooperation among everyone in the equal justice community.

Although the number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high and funding (in inflation-adjusted dollars) for legal aid is at an all-time low, Sandman was optimistic about the potential impact of the summit.

Richard Zorza wrote a great summary of the event on his Access to Justice Blog