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WASHINGTON—Experts discuss the status of alternative legal service delivery models, the various forces pushing regulatory reform forward and the biggest obstacles to changing the legal system on the latest episode of LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast, released today. Talk Justice Co-host Cat Moon is joined by guests Stacy Rupprecht Jane, the director of Innovation for Justice (i4J), and Lucian Pera, a partner at Adam and Reese LLP who focuses on legal ethics and commercial litigation. Pera also helped lead ABA revisions to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other lawyer conduct issues.

Inspired by a recent report from the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), “Community & Cooperation: Action Steps Toward Unlocking Legal Regulation,” Moon brought Jane and Pera together for a conversation that approaches regulatory reform from diverse angles. She says that the current legal system—where 92% of the substantial civil legal problems experienced by low-income Americans receive no or insufficient legal help—is “simply intolerable.”

“I think we are really at a crossroads in our profession,” says Moon. “We really have to consider how we are going to do more and do better to serve more people and make sure more people are getting access to legal help and information.”

Jane explains that since 2018, i4J has been focusing on creating new legal service models that aim to improve access to justice by changing the rules about who gets to know and use the law. Housed at both the University of Arizona and the University of Utah, her organization designs, builds and tests disruptive solutions to the justice gap.

“One part of that is listening to community—and particularly low-income community—around what are the justice needs that they're experiencing that feel really, really important and limiting and frightening and how do they want those needs met,” says Jane. “If we're going to start with a blank slate and reimagine justice, what is the justice that our community wants?”

“And then [there are] the decision makers, which is largely judges and lawyers,” Jane continues. “What are they willing to let go of in a world in which right now only lawyers can receive legal education and then provide legal services? What are the things that they would be willing to expand and build the bench around who can know and use the law?”

Jane says that one of the biggest obstacles to expanding access to justice is legal education and how out of reach it is for most people to complete four years of college, three years of law school and secure a bar license before offering any level of legal help to their community.

Pera, who has worked with companies that want to leverage tech and artificial intelligence to bring people lower-cost legal help, says that the biggest roadblocks to this kind of innovation are unauthorized practice of law rules (UPL) and the bans on fee-sharing and non-lawyer ownership. Although, Pera says, the forces of the market may demand change. He explains that just as new technologies forced the music and journalism industries to totally restructure, the same will have to happen in the legal industry.

“I think there's some chance with the advent of AI and untold amounts of interest and support and money and intrigue and interest over those products—I think you're going to see the force of the market actually bust up some of these restrictions,” says Pera.

“Pretty soon you're going to be able to get advice on your DUI for a hundred dollars from a Chat GPT-driven service—maybe a lawyer will provide it, maybe somebody else will,” Pera continues. “I think it's going to be so popular that you're not going to be able to stand in the way of that, so I am sort of a perverse optimist in the sense that I think regulations are going to be forced to accommodate what people want.”

Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.

Future episodes of the podcast will feature a look at a new report on the aftermath of eviction and new developments in expungement services