Closing the Justice Divide with Technology

The principle of equal rights is at the bedrock of the American legal system. But equal rights doesn’t mean equal access.

According to the Legal Services Corporation’s 2022 Justice Gap Study, most low-income Americans don’t get any or enough assistance for their civil-legal problems, which are typically related to securing or maintaining basic needs such as housing, education, and health care.

Low-income Americans seek help for only 1 in 4 of their substantial legal problems. Almost half cite the cost as the reason they didn’t seek legal help. And more than half don’t know where they could find a lawyer or if they could even afford one.

One way to make justice more accessible, especially to those who need it most, is through technology. Penn Carey Law’s Miguel Willis is committed to using the power of technology to democratize the law and designing legal solutions for systemic change. Willis is the Innovator in Residence at the Law School’s Future of the Profession Initiative, and he founded the Access to Justice (A2J) Tech Fellowship Program.

If you’re working-poor, or even middle class, you face heightened vulnerability to poverty law issues, including eviction, debt collection, and the denial of social welfare benefits. This is especially true for poor communities of color and other marginalized groups. Without access to adequate legal support to resolve their issues, these problems can cascade and ultimately entrap those most vulnerable in a vicious cycle of poverty. The projects that our Fellows are working on help to advance just futures and enhance the capacity of our community partners to better meet the justice needs of the people they serve.”Miguel Willis, Innovator in Residence, Future of the Profession Initiative

The A2J Tech Fellowship Program provides paid, 10-week summer fellowships to 1L and 2L students, who are using technology to design legal empowerment solutions, while interning with a partner legal organization. Past projects have included designing legal information websites, building tools that automate the creation of legal documents, and developing online legal chatbots using artificial intelligence. As of 2023, more than 120 fellows have participated in the program, and provided over 36,000 hours of work in 36 different states.

“The fellowships serve as both a catalyst for justice innovation and pipeline for students who wish to embark on transformative public interest careers,” says Willis. “Advancing racial justice is critical to achieving those goals. Since our inception, we have prioritized equitable representation from law students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Their lived experiences provide vital perspectives and help us build and design new avenues to access justice.”

Willis founded the A2J Tech Fellowship program when he was in his second year of law school at Seattle University School of Law. Driven by his lived experience growing up in poverty, passion for social justice, and keen interest in technological innovation, he organized the Social Justice Hackathon, a collaborative that spurred law students, lawyers, and technologists to create innovative solutions to address access to justice issues.

Following the success of the event, he was invited to visit different law schools around the country who were interested in organizing similar events. Noticing a lack of structures in place to provide law students with training using technology to increase access to justice, he was inspired to create the A2J Tech Fellowship in 2017. The program grew over the years, and it found a home at Penn Carey Law when Willis joined the Future of the Profession Initiative in 2020.

Lizzie Shackney, L’24, and Ronni Mok, L’24, WG’24, are two Penn Carey Law students who participated as fellows in the A2J Tech Program last summer. The students’ projects focused on using technology to address housing equity issues.

When a person inherits the house of a deceased relative, the legal process can be complicated. So Shackney, in her work at Community Legal Services (CLS) in Philadelphia, built a system for CLS attorneys that cuts down on the time they need to spend filling out forms, giving them more time to spend directly with their clients. In another project, Shackney worked to analyze data on wholesale homebuyers, to better protect homeowners from predatory practices.

Mok spent her summer at Legal Services Corporation, analyzing eviction-related data. She was able to use her previous education in statistical science to understand how eviction data can impact tenants, even after their cases are closed.

Access to legal information continues to be a big hurdle. Even with hours of research, it can be confusing to navigate sites across jurisdictions and understand the actual legal takeaways for a specific issue. We can make change even by just compiling this information and making it more readily available for others.”Ronni Mok, L’24, WG’24, Access to Justice Tech Fellow

In addition to pairing fellows with community legal partners, the A2J Tech Fellows program includes an intensive skills training bootcamp, weekly webinars, reflective journaling, and a mentor who offers one-on-one support. These activities aim to foster a sense of community, provide continuous learning opportunities, and help participants explore the career pathways that most interest them.

The A2J Tech Fellowship Program is part of Penn Carey Law’s Future of the Profession Initiative—a network of lawyers, legal experts, students, and professionals from other fields who are engaging in interdisciplinary conversations about the future of the legal profession. The Initiative is a top philanthropic priority for the School, aimed at giving future lawyers the skills they need to best advocate for the people they serve.

To support the Access to Justice Tech Fellowship Program and the Future of the Profession Initiative, contact Heather Frattone at frattone@law.upenn.edu or (215) 898-4396.