Some of these activities already occur in the UK through the Citizens Advice Bureaux. Mostly staffed by volunteers who are not legally qualified with occasional help from a lawyer if need be. They have a long and rich history, indeed since 1939. (See https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk) Admittedly government funding blows hot and cold, but without the CABs many people would suffer. I attended a CAB conference once and one of the speakers said "We help people navigate the complexities of modern life," which I thought summarised their role aptly. It might be dealing with call centres or abstruse forms. One of the most well-known CABs was the one at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand which assisted litigants acting for themselves. I agree wholeheartedly with you we need more demand led solutions to access to justice and legal need.
I want to highlight the work of Legal Link in California which (paraphrasing, and with apologies if I misstate this) focuses on connecting individuals to the legal system through trusted community members, who I read as being in a similar role as the legal intermediaries you suggest. At JusticeAccess (the independent law library I founded) one of our goals--not yet implemented!--will be to partner with non-legal services organizations in DC to provide basic training for those organizations' staffs on basic legal issues and how and when to refer clients to legal services, our library, or self-help centers...as well as to encourage links between legal services and non-legal services organizations in DC.
Jordan — with the minor exclusion of your designation of "people" as on the ground and legal professionals as "on the top" (a construct I forgive due to your legal training) >G< — BRAVO!
I think this is a great approach to the problem of unmet legal needs! I'd also be interested in initiatives that reduce the overall need for certain legal services. Residential leases are notorious for containing unenforceable terms (40% attempt to disclaim the implied warranty of habitability!), but that doesn't help the layperson without that knowledge or the resources to fight it. Dave Hoffman at Penn Law is working on short model leases for Philadelphia residents, and he's getting a surprising amount of pushback from landlord groups who benefit from the aggregate effect of unenforceable lease terms.
Brilliant thoughts grounded in compassionate practical reality. It mirrors what happens in other professions when needs are unmet by the guild. To build on this and your work on AI, what does the situation look like when you marry legal intermediaries with large language models? It is inevitable this will happen and is likely being tested now. In my work for a legal non-profit, I am looking closely at what value this can bring to the constituency that we serve.
Mar 30, 2023·edited Mar 30, 2023Liked by Jordan Furlong
You're spot on Jordan, but perhaps not the first to think of this!
In the last century (late 1990s), when I worked with Community Legal Education Association (CLEA) in Winnipeg, one of my responsibilities was coordinating the Community Legal Intermediary training program that CLEA had by that time been offering for several years. We provided 10 weekly 2-3 hr sessions on various areas of Canadian law with a focus on people law - family, wills, real estate, youth justice, etc to folks from the community and mostly, from community based organizations, recognizing that they were the front line in legal service provision and would be the first people turned to when someone in their community had what might be a legal problem.
CLEA has continued to offer this program and a few years back, added a more advanced program that went deeper for those who completed the first course and wanted to learn more. Based on the typical training class size of about 15 people, offered twice a year, I'd guess that about 750 people have completed this program since I worked there. (Disclosure: I'm on their board now and continue to champion their work in this area!)
I would be surprised if other PLEI (public legal education and information) organizations have not been doing similar work. As the work of PLEI is often under the radar and implicitly supported by legal regulators, if not explicitly, they don't get enough credit for these simple, practical and effective approaches to providing access to justice.
This is a brilliant idea. It does not threaten the wallets of lawyers because the population the intermediary serves can't afford us anyway. And if the intermediary is not perfect, it is better than nothing. And improvement is all we can ask for.
Some of these activities already occur in the UK through the Citizens Advice Bureaux. Mostly staffed by volunteers who are not legally qualified with occasional help from a lawyer if need be. They have a long and rich history, indeed since 1939. (See https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk) Admittedly government funding blows hot and cold, but without the CABs many people would suffer. I attended a CAB conference once and one of the speakers said "We help people navigate the complexities of modern life," which I thought summarised their role aptly. It might be dealing with call centres or abstruse forms. One of the most well-known CABs was the one at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand which assisted litigants acting for themselves. I agree wholeheartedly with you we need more demand led solutions to access to justice and legal need.
I want to highlight the work of Legal Link in California which (paraphrasing, and with apologies if I misstate this) focuses on connecting individuals to the legal system through trusted community members, who I read as being in a similar role as the legal intermediaries you suggest. At JusticeAccess (the independent law library I founded) one of our goals--not yet implemented!--will be to partner with non-legal services organizations in DC to provide basic training for those organizations' staffs on basic legal issues and how and when to refer clients to legal services, our library, or self-help centers...as well as to encourage links between legal services and non-legal services organizations in DC.
Jordan — with the minor exclusion of your designation of "people" as on the ground and legal professionals as "on the top" (a construct I forgive due to your legal training) >G< — BRAVO!
I think this is a great approach to the problem of unmet legal needs! I'd also be interested in initiatives that reduce the overall need for certain legal services. Residential leases are notorious for containing unenforceable terms (40% attempt to disclaim the implied warranty of habitability!), but that doesn't help the layperson without that knowledge or the resources to fight it. Dave Hoffman at Penn Law is working on short model leases for Philadelphia residents, and he's getting a surprising amount of pushback from landlord groups who benefit from the aggregate effect of unenforceable lease terms.
Brilliant thoughts grounded in compassionate practical reality. It mirrors what happens in other professions when needs are unmet by the guild. To build on this and your work on AI, what does the situation look like when you marry legal intermediaries with large language models? It is inevitable this will happen and is likely being tested now. In my work for a legal non-profit, I am looking closely at what value this can bring to the constituency that we serve.
You're spot on Jordan, but perhaps not the first to think of this!
In the last century (late 1990s), when I worked with Community Legal Education Association (CLEA) in Winnipeg, one of my responsibilities was coordinating the Community Legal Intermediary training program that CLEA had by that time been offering for several years. We provided 10 weekly 2-3 hr sessions on various areas of Canadian law with a focus on people law - family, wills, real estate, youth justice, etc to folks from the community and mostly, from community based organizations, recognizing that they were the front line in legal service provision and would be the first people turned to when someone in their community had what might be a legal problem.
CLEA has continued to offer this program and a few years back, added a more advanced program that went deeper for those who completed the first course and wanted to learn more. Based on the typical training class size of about 15 people, offered twice a year, I'd guess that about 750 people have completed this program since I worked there. (Disclosure: I'm on their board now and continue to champion their work in this area!)
I would be surprised if other PLEI (public legal education and information) organizations have not been doing similar work. As the work of PLEI is often under the radar and implicitly supported by legal regulators, if not explicitly, they don't get enough credit for these simple, practical and effective approaches to providing access to justice.
This is a brilliant idea. It does not threaten the wallets of lawyers because the population the intermediary serves can't afford us anyway. And if the intermediary is not perfect, it is better than nothing. And improvement is all we can ask for.