Securing Civil Justice for All Americans

A Framework for Tackling Civil Justice Projects

This report’s sampling of efforts to close the civil justice gap has illustrated how broad and deep that gap continues to be. But anyone interested in spreading the spirit of innovation will be more successful if they keep in mind the following four steps.
 

1. Take a people-centered approach
 

For these justice solutions to succeed and achieve scale, they must be replicable, adaptable, and, most important, backed by the communities they intend to serve. Among the projects discussed here, successful solutions were the ones oriented to serve people who needed help rather than lawyers offering that help.

This report has tried to follow the experience of a person with a legal problem: from realizing that a personal issue might have a legal dimension, to finding services in familiar locations, to turning to free and online sources for information, to trying to access courts and navigate legal systems, whether with a lawyer or by leaning on others who can offer help. Other sections examine the size of investments and their sources, describing the disproportionate, long-term impact even modest funds can have when coordination and collaboration are prioritized.

The aim is to show the many points of intervention, of different sizes, in this national crisis and the many opportunities to launch or support a project that will be useful in bringing civil justice to more Americans when needed—from long before someone has a legal case until long after they have worked through a resolution. For instance, widening access to basic legal information and offering clearer ways to use court services and procedures relies on deeply understanding the experiences of actual users: the Americans who are forced by circumstance to act as their own lawyers. Offering more comprehensible legal information and more intuitive court processes also equips professionals and others who are willing to be trained to assist their neighbors. Infrastructure investments that enable courts and agencies to adopt and implement innovative strategies and technology also raise the baseline of what can be achieved.

The law can also empower. In fact, the law is often used by small businesses, corporations, foundations, and other private-sector organizations to secure licenses, permissions, public grants, and so on and to take advantage of immigration and tax programs. Expanding access to legal information and services and improving legal systems can uplift a variety of communities, and, as has been detailed throughout this report, this can be done in many ways.

But it starts by thinking about opportunities to help the people who rely on the legal system, not just the lawyers whose profession depends on that system.
 

2. Join the existing ecosystem of those already working on civil justice
 

Dedicated networks of professionals of all kinds, legal and otherwise, are working collaboratively to develop and share best practices, new research, and adaptable strategies. The easiest of these steps is to reach out and connect, to learn and ask questions, and to engage with others in partnerships that can optimize resources, capacity, and funding to deliver sustainable solutions. One place to start is this report’s appendix, which lists organizations mentioned throughout Achieving Civil Justice.
 

3. Embrace evidence-based strategies—and contribute that knowledge to the ecosystem
 

Every successful project and initiative in this report relied on and emphasized a key principle: Evidence and data show the way to success and out of failure. Collecting data and evidence about the civil justice gap helps awaken more people, organizations, and institutions to the urgency of Americans’ civil justice needs. Telling stories about the lived experiences of people who struggle with legal problems has power; data can reveal how many people have similar experiences. Data can clarify the breadth of Americans’ legal needs; reveal the limits of legal aid resources; show how paraprofessionals can offer a net to catch Americans who would otherwise fall through the civil justice cracks; expose how little we understand what is happening in state court systems; show which attempts to solve a crisis are working and which are not. Data can point the way toward solutions, improvements, and next steps. As ideas get refined, collecting data shows how those projects can be replicated elsewhere—and where the next problem and research question will emerge. Data help refine the solutions and policies that make these experiments possible.

Civil justice projects now launching will want to turn to the many sources of data already collected to build sturdier policies, practices, technologies, models, and funding. Moreover, the frameworks developed through these data initiatives are well-tested and should be embraced. While this report has mentioned many of those sources, and others are listed in the appendix, a few sources are especially worth mentioning:

• The National Center for Access to Justice conducts regular national surveys to assess and rank policies that promote greater access to justice. It releases these surveys, data, and rankings through its Justice Index.131
• LSC offers a Justice Gap Report. In 2019, it also launched the Civil Court Data Initiative (CCDI), which includes advice and technical assistance for legal aid organizations wishing to collect their own real-time data to inform efforts to respond to changing local needs.132
• In early 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics awarded $2 million to the American Bar Foundation’s Access to Justice Research Initiative and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to launch the Access to Justice Design and Testing Program. Those results will be available on NORC’s project website.133
• Launched in 2016, the ABA Center for Innovation collects information about regulatory reforms and state laws and regulations related to access to justice strategies and offers guidance for states seeking to implement these innovations.134

Of course, as researchers, policymakers, nonprofits, advocacy groups, academic programs, courts, legal aid organizations, federal agencies, and other projects collect legal data, they must remain acutely attentive to protecting individuals’ privacy. Exposing the names and addresses of domestic violence survivors seeking protective orders or revealing the private financial and identification data of people in bankruptcy court could lead to disaster. Pew’s Civil Court Modernization Toolkit explains the urgency of privacy protection and offers guidance about how to pursue it. Numerous experts in the civil justice reform movement have been examining how to protect against security leaks while collecting essential civil legal data responsibly, in ways that are being continuously improved as more is learned. Anyone working on data collection will also want to collaborate with those experts developing the evidence base needed for scalable solutions.
 

4. Expect four phases before a project reaches its full scale
 

This report has showcased many projects, small and large, that are working to expand the numbers of Americans who have access to civil justice. Not one was immediately successful. Numerous people and groups had to invest time, ideas, planning, discussion, resources, and networking to build those projects into real working models that could improve lives and strengthen communities. They had to contend with very different conditions determined by geography, laws and regulations, community needs and capacities, local funders and institutions, court policies, available professionals and digital infrastructure, and so on.

Transforming ideas into practical working projects requires continuous iteration, a commitment to a growth mindset, and an embrace of the process. Here is what to expect.

Phase I: Identify. The first phase simply involves identifying the problem and beginning to puzzle over how to offer a solution. A clear statement of the problem is invaluable. Stakeholders might reach out to those who know more about the landscape, identify resource or knowledge gaps, propose solutions, and ask others to find holes or suggest improvements. This first phase involves a great deal of research and ingenuity when funds are difficult to secure. It could involve data-gathering, focus group discussions, small-scale, low-stakes testing, and then dedicated time for revision based on what is learned.

Phase 2: Prove. Planning and innovating take time. But eventually a working model must be put to the test so that the project can start gathering feedback for improvements. A wider group of stakeholders must now be persuaded. A project introducing case management technologies might begin to reach out to court administrators or to sign up judges who would use the tool. A plan to launch points of access to legal services, on the other hand, may require outreach to community organizations, clients, and local regulators for insight. Testing the model helps both in clarifying the problem and improving the solution. Showing where the model works, through more testing, should help gain support from funders and stakeholders. What is critical is having clear metrics and milestones. How effective is it in practice? What do users want, and how do they suggest it can be fine-tuned and improved? With refinements based on that feedback and evidence gathered about who and how it can help, the project can win approval to continue.

Phase 3: Improve. The earlier phases have proven that the innovative solution can actually help respond to the underlying problem and improve Americans’ access to civil justice. Now the project is ready to seek funding, approval, partners, and support to roll out its solution at scale, improving continuously as it does so. What local, state, or national funders might invest in the project? Which local or state partners can handle various aspects of the solution? How do people using the solution say it can be refined even more? What is needed to make it sustainable? As it is rolled out with stable funding and staffing, the project needs continual monitoring, data analysis, and fine-tuning to streamline operations, improve user outcomes, and stabilize even further. This phase involves revisiting benchmarks and evaluation metrics, streamlining operations, and developing a long-term strategic plan.

Phase 4: Sustain. In this ultimate phase, a project has stabilized. Funding and budgets are consistent. The systems in which the project is embedded take its existence for granted. Relevant community members know where to refer others for this kind of support. Those who have been involved may now wish to think about how to expand the work to still more who would find it useful. Perhaps operations expand from the county to the entire state. Perhaps its innovators work with new partners who wish to take up the effort or find ways to share their lessons with people in other jurisdictions, unlocking new sources of stable funding. At this stage, projects may not seek further scaling, but that does not mean their success cannot be replicated and adapted elsewhere. The goal is not to find a single solution but to ensure each effort is responsive to the diverse communities that benefit from this help. When a project can be adapted or replicated somewhere else, it is scaling.

Further, this is the stage at which the project’s principles and stakeholders will want to invest in telling their story. Without numerous initiatives, campaigns, independent research, and collective work to communicate knowledge across state lines, many of the lessons learned at local levels cannot hope to inform national best practices. That story might be told through data, narrative, reports, conference appearances, information spread through online networks, or philanthropic initiatives. Communications professionals might work to capture information on a website or to interest journalists, advocacy groups, and others who might wish to learn from and adapt the project. Passing along successes and lessons learned reveals a project’s worth and replicability.

One example that demonstrates the four stages of project development is the Alaska community justice worker project mentioned at the start of this report. After listening, gathering evidence, and improving on the early community justice worker model, the Alaska Supreme Court was a partner and understood the potential for the program. The court later approved the program for statewide expansion, authorizing the Alaska Legal Services Corporation to train and supervise community justice workers across the state. Since then, the project has inspired adaptation nationwide, led by Nikole Nelson who transitioned to a new role at Frontline Justice. Frontline Justice is a national organization, focused on empowering people in every state to implement their own version of this new category of legal helpers. Drawn from people already working in trusted roles, these legal helpers gain the training they need to assist people navigating legal challenges—Frontline Justice helps replicate Alaska’s success in other states.

Why do these four steps matter? Because the potential innovator, funder, or supporter needs to know that the project will not look finished when it is started—and that each round of funding and effort will improve the solution’s impact. A combination of private funding and public dollars makes the steps described here possible. When a pilot effort succeeds, it is often the search for additional or subsequent funding that limits its scale, and so thoughtful attention to opportunities for coordinating across funders, from private to public, is vital. Through a long-term campaign and shift in thinking about civil justice, courts and legal profession leaders are stewarding significant progress. Any individual or organization interested in launching a similar project will need to shepherd it through these four main phases. While some may seem messy, keep in mind that success simply looks different at different times.

Endnotes

• 131National Center for Access to Justice, “Justice Index.”
• 132Legal Services Corporation, Civil Court Data Initiative, “About CCDI.” CCDI is a team of data engineers, data scientists, and researchers from LSC’s Office of Data Governance and Analysis who have worked to create software for civil legal aid organizations. It then collects civil court records from more than 1,200 counties in more than 30 U.S. states and territories.
• 133NORC at the University of Chicago, “Access to Justice Design and Testing Program.”
• 134American Bar Association, Center for Innovation, “About Us.”