This was my keynote delivered to the Legal Services Corporation's 2018 Innovations in Tech Conference. Few would dispute that technology is one of the keys to addressing the justice gap. Yet at a time when technological innovation abounds, the justice gap grows only wider. The problem is not technology – it is the justice system’s failure to employ it. In this program, we’ll explore the impediments to broader use of technology and what can be done to overcome them.

1. The Innovation Gap
Why the Justice System Has Failed
to Keep Pace with Technology
and What to Do About It
Robert J. Ambrogi
LSC Innovation in Technology
Conference
January 10, 2018

6. The tools have
evolved, but the
practice has not.

7. 80%
low-income
60%
moderate-income

9. 47%
domestic violence cases
turned away

10. $27 million
IOLTA fell
191 to 128
Legal aid lawyers fell
800K to 974K
Eligibility grew.

12. “Technology can and must
play a vital role in
transforming service
delivery so that all poor
people in the United States
with an essential civil legal
need obtain some form of
effective assistance.”

13. The problem is not
that we lack innovative technology,
it is that the system resists
innovation.

14. The future is
already here —
it's just not very
evenly distributed.
-William Gibson

15. Lawyers fear
technology.

16. Lawyers lack
competence in
technology.

17. “I have to confess to this
court, I am not computer
literate. I have not found
presence in the cybernetic
revolution. I need a
secretary to help me turn on
the computer. This was out
of my bailiwick.”

18. The legal profession is
a protectionist guild
that sees innovation
as a threat.

19. The law firm
profit model
favors
inefficiency.

20. It is difficult to get a
man to understand
something when his
salary depends
upon his not
understanding it.
-Upton Sinclair

21. Courts are stuck in
a vicious circle
that blocks
change.

22. Tech investment
goes where the
money is.

23. We need to reboot
the system.

24. 1. Require tech
competence.

25. ABA Model Rule
1.1, Comment 8
“To maintain the requisite
knowledge and skill, a lawyer
should keep abreast of
changes in the law and its
practice, including the
benefits and risks
associated with relevant
technology … .”

26. 28 States Have Adopted Comment 8

27. • CA Formal Opinion No. 2015-193
• ABA Formal Opinion 477 (2017)

28. • Understand the nature of any threat.
• Understand how client confidential info is
transmitted and stored.
• Understand and use reasonable electronic
security measures.
• Train lawyers and assistants in
technology and information security.
• Conduct due diligence on vendors
providing communication technology.

29. 2. Require – or at least provide –
tech training.

31. Procertas Legal Tech Assessment
Word
• Accept/Turn-off changes and
comments
• Cut & Paste
• Replace text
• Format text
• Footers
• Insert hyperlink
• Apply/Modify style
• Insert/Update cross-references
• Insert page break
• Insert non-breaking space
• Clean document properties
• Create comparison document
Excel
• Copy/Rename worksheet
• Insert column
• Format column width
• Format text
• Sort
• Filter
• Remove duplicates
• Divide
• Count
• Sum
• Average
• Prepare to print
PDF
• Convert Word & Excel
documents to PDF
• Create single PDF from
multiple files
• Recognize text (OCR)
• Extract page
• Highlight text
• Redact information
• Insert footer
• Create bookmark
• Create internal link
• Remove hidden Info
• Password protect

33. 3. Push (shame) law firms
to innovate.

35. My hope is that clients, including
legal departments, will consult
this index and engage in deep
discussions with their lawyers
about how to improve legal-
service delivery.
-Daniel W. Linna Jr.

36. 4. Push (shame) law schools
to teach tech and innovation.

39. 5. Let go of idea that lawyers,
alone, can close the gap.

40. 900 hours
Pro bono required of every lawyer to provide some
assistance to all households with legal needs.
$50 billion
Annual cost to secure just one hour of legal help for all
households with an unmet dispute-related need
$3.7 billion
Current legal aid expenditure

41. 6. Let go of idea that
lawyers are the gold standard.

42. “The myth that exhaustive
manual review is the most
effective—and therefore the
most defensible—approach to
document review is strongly
refuted.
“Technology-assisted review can
(and does) yield more accurate
results than exhaustive manual
review, with much lower effort.”

43. 7. Rewrite the regulatory
rules.

44. Meeting demand will require a massive
shift in the production technology for
legal services to dramatically reduce
costs. The only way to achieve the kind
of scale and innovation needed is
through the corporate practice of law.
-Gillian Hadfield

45. 8. Measure what works
and what doesn’t.

46. 50
Randomized control
trials ever in law

47. “In no field is
resistance to evidence-
based thinking more
ferocious than in
United States legal
practice.”

48. Query:
Is a tenant in housing court
better off receiving limited,
lawyer-for-the-day assistance
or full legal representation?

49. 9. Encourage funding sources to
promote innovation and testing.

51. 10. Push courts
to innovate.

52. 60 million
Disputes per year
90%
Resolved

54. Proselytize!

55. Robert Ambrogi
lawsitesblog.com
ambrogi@gmail.com
@bobambrogi