ABA Access to Justice Commissions: Grants Made and Availability Announced

Posted on March 21, 2013 by richardzorza

Here is a list of grants just made to support the establishment/encouragement of new Access to Justice Commissions:

  • Arizona Foundation for Legal Services and Education
  • Supreme Court of Ohio
  • Supreme Court of Oklahoma
  • Philadelphia Bar Association
  • Rhode Island Judiciary

It is also a good time to note the availability of funds to expand into new areas the work of existing Commissions.  From the announcement:

The goal of the 2013 Innovation Grants is to expand access to civil justice for low-income people by:

•    Developing and testing innovative new projects that can be replicated in other jurisdictions.

•    Encouraging existing Access to Justice Commissions to pursue innovation.

•    Strengthening existing Access to Justice Commissions and enabling them to expand their scope of on-going activities into broad areas in which they previously have not been active or have been only minimally active, and/or to engage new stakeholders.

The application date for 2013 Innovation Grants is May 1, 2013. Grants will be made on or around June 1, 2013. Grants are likely to be in the $8000 to $20,000 range.

This is another great opportunity for Commissions to assess how they might make an even bigger impact on access to justice.  Only Commissions are eligible to apply, and real new ideas are strongly encouraged.

A look at the linked documents shows what an impact these grants are already having in filling out the network of Commissions, and expanding the mission and reach of those already in place.  Thanks to the ABA Resource Center for Access to Justice Initiatives for their work, and to the Public Welfare and Kresge Foundations for their support.

 

Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Funding | 1 Comment

Transitions

Posted on March 21, 2013 by richardzorza

This seems to be a time of transitions in the access to justice world.  I’d like to take the opportunity to note the very significant contributions of those that I know about.

Allison McDermott is leaving Pro Bono Net after 12 years helping shape what is now a leading force for access to justice.  She will be Executive Director of the Havens Relief Fund Society.  News of the appointment is here.  All who have worked with her, and know her energy, generosity of spirit, deep personal warmth, and great skill will know what a gap she will leave at PBN.  And, all who have observed PBN’s history of attracting great talent will have no doubt that the organization will find the right person or persons.

Laura Abel, of the National Center for Access to Justice, is moving to the Lawyers Alliance for New York to serve as Senior Policy Counsel, where she will be guiding nonprofits in New York on issues of policy and compliance. Again a wonderful person on whom so many of us already rely for commonsense, insight, and intelligence.   Stepping in will be Jamie Gamble, former Simpson Thacher Bartlett partner, who will take on the role of pro bono Director of  NCAJ’s Access to Justice Index Project.

Finally, Danielle Hirsch, who has done such a wonderful job at the Chicago Bar Foundation, including working on expanding the Justice Corps concept, is moving to be the new first executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice.  She will be a great addition to the ever-strengthening network of Commissions (including, I understand, continuing to work with the Justice Corps program in Chicago).

Congratulations to all of you, thanks for your contributions, and we look forward to new triumphs.

Posted in Access to Justice Generally | Comments Off on Transitions

Good News Spreads More on Social Media — Implications for Outreach

Posted on March 20, 2013 by richardzorza

A fascinating story in the New York Times reports that while it s generally thought that bad news is more popular in traditional media, “if it bleeds, it leads,” the opposite is the case in social media.  The finding is based on a study of which Times stories have been e-mailed by readers.

One of his first findings to be reported — which I still consider the most important social-science discovery of the past century — was that articles and columns in the Science section were much more likely to make the list than nonscience articles. He found that science aroused feelings of awe and made Times readers want to share this positive emotion with others.

Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative emotions like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.”

“Stories about newcomers falling in love with New York City,” he writes, were more likely to be e-mailed than “pieces that detailed things like the death of a popular zookeeper.” Debbie Downer is apparently no match for Polly Positive, at least among Times readers.

In particular, people were more likely to e-mail articles that on scans lit up the portion of the brain that dealt with thinking about others.

Personally, I find this fascinating because I find it so frustrating that whenever I talk to a reporter about access to justice I try to interest them in the exciting access innovations that so many of us are working on, and then find that the article ends up focusing only on the crisis of the lack of lawyers.   Maybe if writers take the message that readers want to share good news about things like access innovations, we will have an easier time spreading the word about our work.

In any event, these findings do underline the value of our telling a positive story that is then more likely to be shared.

Less encouragingly, the article also reports on studies suggesting that people who spend a lot of time on Facebook tend to get depressed because everyone else seems to have better lives than they.  So maybe telling about innovations might depress people who feel inadequate by comparison — perhaps the solution is to indicate how people can plug into these developments — action over passivity.

Posted in Research and Evalation, Science, Social Media, Technology | 3 Comments

Randomized Studies Gain an Ally

Posted on March 19, 2013 by richardzorza

We do not usually track electoral politics on this blog, except when it directly impacts access to justice.  But this piece from Politico is irresistible in its description, by a Republican consultant, of how the Democrats used the scientific method to achieve their victory.

Beginning with Progressive interest groups more than a decade ago, liberals allied with academic social scientists to study politics the way medical researchers study the effects of drugs. They embraced the core of the scientific method, deploying randomized, controlled experiments to rigorously test the effectiveness of their messages and tactics.

With these experiments, Democrats built – and continue to build – an objective base of knowledge on what works and what doesn’t. Today, the Left is permeated with a culture of testing. Expert opinions are taken as just that; opinions, hypotheses to be tested with experiments.

Why did the Obama campaign invest so heavily in grassroots field offices? Years of randomized-controlled experiments indicated that, for all their expense and difficulty, they gave the highest vote return. Why did they promote strange video pledges to support the president or send “voter report cards” informing Democrats of their voting record and how it compared with their neighbors? Experiments indicated that these are effective at getting out the vote.

The lesson is clear: such studies are how you win the future, including in access to justice.  We need to do be doing more of this work, and we need to be doing it in a systematic way.  We need to develop a whole set of hypotheses and test them.  We need to agree on appropriate outcome measures so we can compare different studies and integrate the results into coherent strategies.

Posted in Research and Evalation, Systematic Change, Technology | 2 Comments

National Coalition on Civil Right to Counsel Listing of Gideon Events

Posted on March 19, 2013 by richardzorza

The National Counsel on Civil Right to Counsel has put up a nice website on the events organized around the Gideon anniversary.

Upcoming events include those in San Fransciso, DC, Durham NC, and Boston (Harvard – I will be speaking).

I encourage folks to take a look, and to contribute any that are not yet shown.

Posted in Access to Counsel, Criminal Law, Defender Programs | Comments Off on National Coalition on Civil Right to Counsel Listing of Gideon Events

Memories of a Mentor, and Honoring a Prosecutor

Posted on March 18, 2013 by richardzorza

On the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainright, I keep thinking about one of my mentors, Brownlow (Browny) Speer, who died a few weeks ago.

Browny was Chief Appellate Attorney of first the Massachusetts Defenders Committee, and then its successor, the Committee for Public Counsel Services.  He was one of the brightest people I have ever met, and one of the most humble.

I am particularly mindful, as we reflect on Gideon, of his teaching that wise judges recognize rather than resent, as many judges sadly do, the zealousness of those who appear in front of them, realizing that they can only do a good job as judges when presented with strong arguments and authority from both sides.  Browny recounted how he had read that transcript of the Boston Massacre trial, and how like practice just before and just after Gideon it seemed, with presumptions, burden shifting and other pro-conviction tools.  It was Gideon, which ensured (or at least started to ensure) that the counter arguments were made, and thus changed the substance of the criminal law.  This must be one of the strongest arguments for a so-called Civil Gideon.

A very different, and yet ultimately the same story, about ensuring that both sides are heard to do justice, was told me by Browny about a then prosecutor (and former defender), Dan Toomey, who died ten years ago.

In the mid 1980’s Browny took a call from Dan, by then Chief of Appeals at the Worcester MA DA’s office.  The legislature had recently re-enacted a death penalty, and a cop had been shot and killed in the County.  If the DA sought a report to the state Supreme Court seeking a pre-trial ruling on the constitutionality of the death penalty statute, would the public defender file a brief?  Well, replied Browny, we usually don’t file amicus brief’s because we do not have the time.  The conversation continued (as best recalled and reconstructed by me from his recounting)

Dan:  Well, let me put it another way.  If there were a serious constitutional defect in the statute, and the case were in the SJC, and the defense lawyers had not noticed the defect, and I called you and told you about it, would you file a brief?

Browny:  Well, in those circumstances, I suppose we would.

Dan:  In that case I will file for a report.

The result, of course, was Commonwealth v. Colon-Cruz, striking the death penalty statute.  Massachusetts has never had a death penalty since, and indeed, I believe that since that date, no state has enacted an ultimately constitutional death penalty.  I worked on the public defender amicus, and while I honestly believe that my work made no difference at all to the result — the statute was glaringly unconstitutional — it is still the work of which I am probably the most proud.  Death is different.

Dan remembered that the prosecutor’s first obligation is to do justice.  Nothing he did was improper, he merely acted to ensure that both sides were heard, and that thus a conscientious court could render a just result.

There is a footnote to these stories.  About ten years later there was an opening on the state Supreme Court, and a newspaper called Browny to tell him that the list of three names that had gone to the Republican Governor as finalists included Dan’s name.  Did Browny have a comment about by then trial Judge Toomy.  Again, as Browny recalled it:  “After I had recovered from almost falling off my chair, I replied ‘Oh, I think he has always been a fair judge.'”

P.S.  Before posting, I showed the above to Dan’s daughter Kathryn Toomey, and she replied:

My favorite line of your blog is: Dan remembered that the prosecutor’s first obligation is to do justice.
 
I have never been on the other side of the fence. I have not been in a prosecutor’s role. I had grown up with a dad who was the 1st Asst ADA, to the then DA-John J. Conte.  This particular thought exhibits how my father approached his job.
 
My father died over ten years ago. I am in the local courthouses of Worcester County on a daily basis, every time I am in the buildings I hear wonderful reflections and stories from attorneys, judges, clerk’s probation employees, etc….. as to qualities of fairness and justice exhibited by my dad.  I am proud that his obligation was to do justice.

What a wonderful tribute from a loving daughter whose father was surely equally proud of her.

Posted in Access to Justice Generally, Criminal Law, Legal Ethics, Public Defender, Vocation | Comments Off on Memories of a Mentor, and Honoring a Prosecutor

Thoughts After the Gideon Fifty Year Anniversay Gathering at DOJ

Posted on March 16, 2013 by richardzorza

I was privileged to be invited to be at the gathering yesterday at the Dept of Justice to mark the 50th anniversay of Gideon v. Wainright.  The gathering was organized by the Access to Justice Initiative of DOJ.  Among those speaking were Justice Elena Kagan, former Vice President Walter Mondale, Nina Totenberg (NPR), Bill Leahy (NY Office of Indigent Legal Services) , retired Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, Bryan Stevenson (Equal Justice Initiative), Eric Holder (Attorney General), and Deborah Leff (Acting Senior Counselor, Access Initiative.)

There was much of note — including Walter Mondale’s endorsement of Civil Gideon, Elena Kagan’s Solonomic decision that a defendant was entitled not to a Cadillac defense or a Nova defense, but a Taurus defense, Eric Holder’s announcement of some defense-oriented Federal grants and clear articulation of commitment to the Gideon vision, and Bill Leahy’s call for a National Commission on these issues.

However, what struck me most was Mondale’s reminder that Gideon had the impact it had not only because of the decision itself, but because Tony Lewis, by writing Gideon’s Trumpet, really popularized and gave force to the spirit and meaning of the decision.  It is an important lesson for all of us, with particularly immediate force for our follow up on Turner v. Rogers, which I believe holds great potential for building support for practical steps for 100% access to justice.

We need a whole army of trumpeters, to ensure that the meaning of Turner is clear, understood, and enforced.

I understand the video of the gathering will soon be available.

P.S. Judge Kevin Burke has a great history of Gideon and the failures to fulfill its promise here.

 

Posted in Access to Justice Generally, Criminal Law, Defender Programs, Dept. of Justice, Supreme Court | Comments Off on Thoughts After the Gideon Fifty Year Anniversay Gathering at DOJ

Will the Sequester Kill Innovation — and How to Prevent That

Posted on March 16, 2013 by richardzorza

While the sequester will do a lot of short damage — for example the loss of $29 million or so in legal aid funding, the real risk is to the culture of innovation.

To the extent that managers in courts and legal aid programs respond to cuts by reducing investment in innovation and experimentation, the long term damage will be much greater.

Moreover, the risk is exacerbated if the sequester numbers become the “new normal.”

The only way I can think of to counter this is to work to build into all of our organizations a “culture of innovation.”  All too often today, when we want to do something new, we hire a new person, set up a new department, or go for a new grant.

Instead, we have to find ways, each day, and in every activity, to ask ourselves how we can do it better.  Here are some thoughts on how to move such institutionalization of innovation forward:

  • Make sure that agency budgets include an “innovation line”, that is protected whatever happens
  • Ask every staffer at every level to try something different, and report it to her or his colleagues
  • Continue long term planning, even if the money is not there in the short term
  • Keep looking for possible savings and use them for innovation
  • Stay alert for areas that seem inefficient, and brainstorm transformative changes in those areas
  • Give awards for innovations

Please share examples and ideas in the comments.

Posted in Funding, Systematic Change | 1 Comment

Alaska Early Resolution Project Using Pro Bono

Posted on March 9, 2013 by richardzorza

Alaska has a great Early Resolution Project in which pro bono attorneys focus on cases which are settlement ready, as screened by the self-help center.  As the linked document explains:

Early intervention is an effective component of settlement in family law cases.  Therefore, the Alaska Court System created the Early Resolution Project (ERP).  In ERP, newly filed divorce and custody cases involving two self-represented litigants are screened by reviewing the contested issues and the likelihood of settling any or all issues.  Once selected for ERP, the court schedules six to eight cases at the same time during a regularly scheduled afternoon hearing block.  ERP occurs currently in three of the state’s largest volume courts – Anchorage, Palmer and Juneau – and the Fairbanks court will be starting ERP in the spring of 2013. 

And:

Volunteer attorneys are available at the hearing to provide unbundled legal services.  In other words, the attorneys provide advice to their client for the ERP hearing only and negotiate with the opposing party’s volunteer attorney to see if any agreements can be reached.  Court mediators are also used to assist the litigants. The Alaska Legal Services Corporation Pro Bono Program handles the volunteer attorney coordination, training and recruitment.  The Alaska Attorney General supports the involvement of Assistant Attorneys General in this project.  The court Child Custody Visitation Mediation Program provides court mediators for ERP.  A few cases do not receive either attorneys or mediators if there are no disputed issues or relatively few or simple issues to be decided.  In those cases, the ERP judge acts as a settlement judge at the hearing.

If the parties reach an agreement, it is memorialized on the record by the ERP settlement judge.  Appropriate orders, including a child support order, are issued at the hearing’s conclusion; final paperwork is distributed to the parties while they are still in the courtroom.   

There are two ERP hearings per month in Anchorage and once per month in Palmer and Juneau.  The Early Resolution Project has proven to be an effective settlement tool in 80% of the over 428 family law cases assigned to the project.  Over 50% of the eligible cases have gone through ERP.  Significantly, there has been a 98% appearance rate by the parties.  Volunteer attorney participation has been impressive, with volunteers continuing to regularly appear three years since the program began. 

The linked document discusses the screening considerations and the benefits of the program.

While this may not be a perfect solution for all courts, it is a great example of focused attention to the actual needs of the litigants and the court.

See also New York attorney of the day programs at http://nycourts.gov/COURTS/nyc/housing/vlfd_housing.shtml and http://nycourts.gov/COURTS/nyc/civil/vlfd_civil.shtml

Posted in Pro Bono, Self-Help Services | 1 Comment

Mississippi Law Journal Symposium Issue on Access to Justice

Posted on March 9, 2013 by richardzorza

The Mississippi Law Journal Symposium issue on access to justice is out.  All the articles are online.  Lots of useful citeable content.

Here is the Table of Contents:

Kristen Kyle-Castelli, Foreword: Poverty and Access to Justice Symposium

Hon. Jess H. Dickinson, Equal Justice

Benjamin P. Cooper, Regulatory Barriers to Justice in Mississippi

Brooks Holland, The Washington State Limited License Legal Technician Practice Rule: ANational First in Access to Justice

Deborah H. Bell, The Cost of Fault-Based Divorce

Hon. Denise S. Owens, The Reality of Pro Se Representation

Vincent Morris, Navigating Justice: Self-Help Resources, Access to Justice, And Whose Job is it Anyway?

Douglas A. Blaze & R. Brad Morgan, More Equal Access to Justice: The Unrealized Potential of Law Schools

Marni von Wilpert, Medical-Legal Partnerships in Mississippi: A Model to Improve Access to Justice

Hon. Donna M. Barnes, Bringing Access to Justice to the Local Community

Its good to see more law review attention to access to justice.

Posted in Access to Justice Generally | 1 Comment

News on Law Student Pro Bono

Posted on March 8, 2013 by richardzorza

The National Center for Access to Justice shares some news on the New York law student pro bono rule, and beyond.

  1. The Center has released its recommendations for software to support law student pro bono.  “The Center is interested in hearing from people interested in helping to move a software application initiative forward (contact info@nc4aj.org).”
  2. Law students have created a campaign to expand the concept to all the states. “The Campaign encourages people to visit and like its Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/LawStudentProBono, where news of developments in states will be posted.”
  3. California and New York are taking affirmative steps to adopt the requirement.

A committee of Connecticut Judicial Branch’s Access to Justice Commission, and a Task Force of the California State Bar, have independently issued proposed recommendations calling for 50 hour pro bono service requirements in their respective states.  The Connecticut report calls for a pre-admission pro bono requirement.  The California Bar recommendation, which remains a draft until adopted by the full Task Force Board, calls for a requirement that could be fulfilled either pre- or post-admission (while also calling for curriculum reform and for a new continuing legal education requirement).

Posted in Law Schools, Pro Bono, Technology | Comments Off on News on Law Student Pro Bono

Robots and the Law, and a Question About Unauthorized Practice

Posted on March 8, 2013 by richardzorza

An interesting article in the Boston Globe explores issues relating to robots and the law.

The article points out:

With most robot-like machines that exist today, any serious problems can be easily traced back to a human somewhere, whether because the machine was used carelessly or because it was intentionally programmed to do harm. But experts in artificial intelligence and the emerging field of robot ethics say that is likely to change. With the advent of technological marvels like the self-driving car and increasingly sophisticated drones, they say we’ll soon be seeing the emergence of machines that are essentially autonomous. And when these machines behave in ways unpredictable to their makers, it will be unclear who should be held legally responsible for their actions.

and:

As weird as it may sound, some experts, including [Gabriel] Hallevy, are suggesting that blame may need to be placed on the robots themselves. Though there’s something absurd about subjecting amoral machines to justice, Hallevy argues in his forthcoming book that the question is not really about morality—it’s about awareness. And under existing criminal law, he says, a machine with full autonomy can and should be held criminally liable for its actions. “Evil is not required,” Hallevy said. “An offender—a human, a corporation, or a robot—is not required to be evil. He is only required to be aware [of what he’s doing].” In his book, Hallevy argues that being “aware,” whether you’re a human or a robot, involves nothing more than absorbing factual information about the world and accurately processing it. Under that narrow definition, he writes, robots have been sophisticated enough to qualify for criminal liability since the 1980s.

So what does that do for unauthorized practice of law rules?  Particularly when document assembly becomes intelligent, not just in sense that it branches, but in the sense that it “learns” from outcomes to change question and assembly decisions?

Posted in Technology | Comments Off on Robots and the Law, and a Question About Unauthorized Practice

JOLT Publishes Additinal LSC Tech Summit Papers Online

Posted on March 6, 2013 by richardzorza

More papers from the LSC Summit on Technology and Access to Justice have now been posted online by Harvard’s Journal of Law and Technology, adding to those already published in the journal itself.

The papers are:

Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice: Analytical Framework – John M. Greacen and William L. Jones

Using Technology to Unbundle in the Legal Services Community – Stephanie Kimbro

A Decision Space for Legal Service Delivery – Marc Lauritsen

Virtual Services Whitepaper – Susan Ledray

Preliminary Thoughts on Blue Sky Technology Driven Access and Decision Systems – Richard Zorza

While these papers are very different, they will be useful to cite on their specific subjects, and are helpful in thinking about overall directions for technology and access.

Posted in LSC, Self-Help Services, Systematic Change, Technology, Unbundling | 1 Comment

Texas Chief Justice State of the Judiciary Message

Posted on March 6, 2013 by richardzorza

Wallace Jefferson, the inspiring Chief Justice of Texas, has just issued his State of the Judiciary Message. I have bolded the language that might be most useful to quote, but the whole quote, and indeed the whole Message is worthy of attention.

But there is a dark secret that plagues our justice system as a whole. We in the judiciary must bring this secret to light. The sad fact is that the middle class and small businesses find our system unworkable and unaffordable. They believe there are too many unnecessary lawsuits, coupled with incessant legal wrangling that drags out cases. And they feel that even if they are entitled to a remedy for a legal wrong, they cannot afford the fees a lawyer quotes for vindication. It is time for us to do our part to answer these concerns, because if the remedy is unaffordable, justice is denied.

Eligibility for legal aid is generally capped at 125% of federal poverty guidelines. A family of four with an income of $30,000 does not qualify. After that family pays for shelter, sustenance, and the other necessities of daily life, it cannot possibly afford a lawyer for the most basic legal necessities of life. The most generous legal aid programs limit eligibility to those within 200% of federal poverty levels, meaning that a four-person household with income over $46,100 does not qualify. Statutory rights to counsel generally apply only to the indigent, as do most pro bono efforts. Increasingly, litigants are representing themselves, because they have no real alternative.

We have more lawyers in America than at any time in our history. In 1960, there was one lawyer for every 627 people in the United States. Today, there is one for every 252. Isn’t it ironic that as litigants are increasingly forced to represent themselves, law school graduates cannot find jobs?

I believe that we have to shift our thinking. Access to justice is about more than giving a poor person a lawyer. An accessible justice system requires that even broader segments of our society be able to use it, including those that are forced to navigate the judicial system alone. Our remedies must be expansive and creative. We must change the way we do business in our courts to meet the needs of all citizens and businesses while at the same time improving customer service, increasing transparency, and investing in technology to decrease costs and increase efficiency. We must develop a judicial climate in which people who lack money to hire a lawyer have a reasonable chance to vindicate their rights.

To address this, the Supreme Court recently approved forms that litigants may use when seeking an uncontested divorce involving no children and no real property. Forty-eight states have court-approved family-law forms. Of the thirty- seven states that have forms for divorce proceedings, all have reported a positive impact on the overall efficiency of those cases. I commend the efforts of the Real Estate, Probate and Trust Law Section and Appellate Section of the State Bar, both of which have undertaken similar forms efforts in their respective specialties.

Through the promulgation of procedural rules, we can reduce the expense and delay of litigation while simultaneously protecting the rights of litigants. At
the Legislature’s direction, the Supreme Court recently adopted rules to simplify proceedings in cases involving claims for monetary relief of less than $100,000. Discovery is limited; the cases are expedited. Now, a case that is vital to the success of a small business owner can actually be tried, to a verdict. A remedy for a legal injury – even for the individual who cannot afford to pay a lawyer $500 an hour. The Supreme Court also adopted a rule allowing trial courts to dismiss cases that have no basis in law or fact. The net result is that cases that have no business in the courts will be shown the door, expediting relief for litigants who are subject to frivolous suits. Finally, we are working on rules to simplify and consolidate small claims cases in our justice courts. These rules will be comprehensible for citizens who are representing themselves in Court, and ensure the fair, expeditious, and inexpensive resolution of their cases.

I also particularly like the some of the introductory language on e-filing.

One of the more intractable barriers to justice is antiquity. Our courts operate much like they did in 1891, with paper, stamps on paper, cabinets for paper, staples, storage, shredding of paper. To paraphrase, the era of big paper is over.

It’s great to see such clear leadership.

Posted in Access to Justice Generally, E-filing, Self-Help Services | Comments Off on Texas Chief Justice State of the Judiciary Message

Huge Flash Memory to Speed Big Data Analysis

Posted on March 4, 2013 by richardzorza

According to the NYT Bits Blog, a new 1.4 terabyte flash memory card has the potential to democratize access to “big data” analysis.  The card, now costing only $4,000, and likely to be heavily discounted, is supposedly 25,000 times faster for a server to access than traditional disk memory.  The result is that data intensive analysis can be done much more quickly, because data can be access and then processed much more rapidly.

Its time for us to start analyzing our web logs, our court files, our case management systems aggressively and in real time.  This should speed triage and simplification.  Maybe we need a “boot camp” in big data as part of the next TIG conference.  Or maybe access to justice groups should cooperate in a training program.  Think what an ATJ Commission could do with big data skills.

Posted in Access to Justice Boards, Research and Evalation, Technology, Triage | 1 Comment