The legal services marketplace is rapidly evolving, and bar associations must embrace those changes or risk irrelevance. By developing new educational programs and initiatives, facilitating the profession’s use of cost-saving tools, accelerating solutions that address the access to justice crisis, and welcoming other professionals who can improve how legal services are delivered and accessed, the bar can play an essential leadership role during a time of significant change.

Educational Programs and Initiatives

The public increasingly expects and demands services to be delivered in new ways. We shop, bank, do our taxes, and find information differently today because of technology and innovation. Similar developments are affecting legal services, and lawyers need to learn how to adjust. Many law schools are expanding their curricula to include knowledge and skills about law practice technology and innovation,[1] but most of today’s lawyers do not know how to adapt.  Bar associations can help.

Continuing Legal Education

Continuing legal education (CLE) programs offer a conventional opportunity to educate members about important changes to the legal marketplace. Florida has gone even farther.[2] In September 2016, the Florida Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of unanimously approving a rule requiring Florida lawyers to take technology-related continuing legal education courses. The rule requires lawyers to take a minimum of three hours of technology-related CLE courses every three years. The rule went into effect on January 1, 2017. 

Innovation Clearinghouses 

Bar associations can publicize information about impactful and replicable innovations.   The ABA’s new Center for Innovation, established in September 2016,[3] is about to launch an Innovation Clearinghouse that will spotlight new approaches to the delivery of legal services in a wide range of areas, such as court innovations, legal technology, in-house legal departments, and legal aid.[4] These kinds of efforts can shed an important light on valuable projects and demonstrate the role of bar associations in disseminating knowledge about critical legal services innovations.

Special Events

Bars can develop special events and programs to help spread the word about innovative tools and policy changes. The ABA Center for Innovation recently teamed with the National Conference of Bar Presidents on a program that helped lawyers, judges, and the public learn more about the significant problems associated with court-imposed fines and fees as well as the innovative solutions that have been developed to address those problems.[5] The Center also organized an Innovation Spotlight event, consisting of 10 speakers from different parts of the legal industry who delivered short presentations on their impactful solutions to pressing legal services needs. Numerous similar programs are hosted or sponsored by bar associations every year, and those events can help members and the public learn about critical problems and innovative solutions.

Fellows Programs

The ABA Center for Innovation has developed two types of fellows programs to help the profession and individual members respond to new realities. NextGen Fellows are relatively recent law school graduates who spend a year at the Center, receive a salary, learn about innovative approaches to legal services delivery, and advance a project designed to address a critical legal services delivery problem. 

Innovation Fellows are seasoned professionals who spend more limited time at the Center to work on a discrete project. These professionals often lack the time and resources needed to innovate, and a two- to three-month fellowship provides them with what they need to bring their ideas to full potential. For instance, the North Carolina State Bar, North Carolina Supreme Court, and North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts joined together to sponsor an Innovation Fellow to come to the Center for training and to assist with efforts to establish a Center for Innovation in North Carolina.

In each case, the Center matches fellows with available resources within and outside the ABA to help the fellows appropriately plan and develop impactful projects.[6] Moreover, each fellow participates in a boot camp that involves training in the people, process, and technology skills that are needed to transform the delivery of legal services.  The Center expects to make the boot camp more widely available in the coming months. 

In the meantime, fellows are taking on a wide range of projects, such as developing an app to help pro se litigants navigate local civil procedure, assisting low- and moderate-income renters in knowing their rights, and exploring how blockchain technology can be used in the fines and fees arena to benefit the public.

The Center for Innovation seeks to expand the fellows program in various ways, such as by hosting more fellows from state and local bar associations. The bottom line is that bar associations can provide these kinds of opportunities to help the industry adapt to the 21^st century legal marketplace and facilitate work on cutting-edge projects.

Futures Commissions

Bar associations have an important role to play in educating their members and the public about systemic legal service delivery issues and large-scale solutions. Many bars are establishing futures commissions or have recently undertaken such efforts.[7] In 2016, the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services completed a two-year review of the legal services industry and developed a major report that identifies existing problems and recommends a wide range of solutions.[8]

Facilitating the Profession’s Use of Cost-Saving Tools

Bar associations can build websites and other resources to help members find appropriate tools for their practices.  During her ABA President-Elect year, Linda Klein met with lawyers in various small and mid-size communities across the country. One message she heard was that lawyers, particularly solo and small firm practitioners, are pressed for time and do not know where to find the basic technology that would make their practices more efficient. To help them, the ABA developed ABA Blueprint.[9]

Through an expert system, ABA Blueprint helps lawyers identify the technological tools that an individual lawyer needs. It also provides access to consultants to answer questions about recommended products. The ABA will roll out Blueprint 2.0 in the fall of 2018, which will provide even more tools for solo and small firms.

Accelerating Solutions that Help to Close the Access to Justice Gap

Bar associations can demonstrate their relevance to the public by building tools that address the ever-growing access to justice gap. In 2016, floods ravaged the areas in and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, yet flood victims often lacked the documentation of home ownership that is required to establish eligibility for FEMA and state recovery disaster assistance. A multifaceted campaign called “FloodProof” emerged last year to address these needs, and the Center stepped up to play an important role.

Working with Stanford Law School, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (SLLS), Louisiana State University Law School, and Louisiana Appleseed, the Center created a mobile app to help Louisiana flood victims gather information and documents needed to establish home ownership and complete disaster relief applications. The Center developed a web-based version of FloodProof and explored efforts, in cooperation with the ABA Standing Committee on Disaster Response and Preparedness [10] and Louisiana Appleseed, to drive greater awareness and use of these new technology resources. Through a collaborative effort with SLLS, LSU Law School, Southern University Law School, Baton Rouge Bar Association, Louisiana Appleseed, and local and state government, flood victims are being introduced to both the mobile app and web platform to assist in recovery. The Center is now replicating the effort in other states.

The Center is collaborating on similar projects in many different areas, such as the creation of a web-based tool to direct victims of hate crimes or bias incidents to available resources, an app for law enforcement that would help translate Miranda warnings into other languages, and the pairing of legal tech companies with legal aid offices so that cutting-edge tools can enable frontline legal services lawyers to reach more clients.  In short, bar associations can marry their networks and substantive expertise with innovative thinking to have a positive impact on how the public accesses essential legal services.

Embracing Other Professionals

Embracing change means welcoming a wide range of professionals who can contribute in various ways. The Center’s volunteer leaders include people who have innovated outside of the legal industry; in fact, one of the Center’s Innovation Fellows was a court administrator who was not a lawyer. 

Recognizing the role of other kinds of professionals also means an openness to rethinking the regulation of legal services.  In 2016, the ABA adopted Model Regulatory Objectives for the Provision of Legal Services,[11] and one of the explicit rationales for doing so was a recognition that various kinds of professionals are playing an important role in the delivery of legal services.  The Model Regulatory Objectives set out some basic principles to help regulators and bar associations think through their regulatory stances in light of these developments.

Conclusion

At an inflection point for the legal industry, bar associations must be at the vanguard of change rather than a bulwark against it. If bars embrace their role as change agents, they will ultimately serve both their members and the public more effectively.