Public Interest, Technology

alt.legal: A Challenge For the Public Good

What can alt.legal companies do to advance the public interest and bridge the justice gap?

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lawyers helping bridging justice gap public interest pro bonoNon nobis solum nati sumus/
(“Not for ourselves, but for all.”) 
– Cicero, De Officiis 1:22

Recently, a writer on AboveTheLaw called out the alt.legal players for being passive in the face of potential threats to civil liberties and protected classes arising from the alt-right movement. Carolyn Elefant asserted that “as alt-right gains traction, alt.legal is no where to be found.” She claimed that leaders in alt.legal have conveniently used the access to justice narrative to promote their companies but in this time of new legal needs, the help that could be provided from these companies has not materialized.

Now this is not entirely true–the alt.legal world has entire businesses and organizations devoted to serving the public need, like Upsolve, TrustLaw, and Paladin. But this is a challenge I take to heart, as someone who wants to believe that access to justice is truly a consequence of alternative legal services. I have said as much about our own company recently, on the record. So I hope to provide a thoughtful response in several points, not as a rebuttal, but as points of reflection as we enter a holiday season typically hallmarked with charitable giving and acts of generosity.

  1. The point is made in large part in defense of the solo practitioner.

I wholeheartedly agree that it is people that animate the potential of technology more than they oppose its supposed sufficiency. I do think that where there are inefficiencies among small practices, a marketplace of competition that includes technology-enabled services will serve as a positive challenge to those inefficiencies, but it is for the solo practitioner to embrace and welcome this change. It is the “cyborg” lawyer (human plus tech) that ultimately wins the day to the best outcome of meeting legal needs. Solos and alt.legal need not be mutually exclusive in this effort.

  1. There are, in fact, alt.legal players that are helping the greater good.

My co-author, Joe Borstein, covered one of them at great length in a recent post about Upsolve, a non-profit company whose mission is “to empower low-income Americans to get back on their feet after they hit hard times” by “making bankruptcy help simple, fast and free.” This is a perfect example of this. Another nonprofit organization, e.thepeople, seeks to provide transparent voting guide software to enable groups to educate the electorate about the candidates in their election cycle.

Sponsored

Perhaps even more interesting are the pro bono marketplace sites that connect lawyers to good work. I am extremely proud of TrustLaw, a project of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, that connects the best law firms and corporate legal teams to high-impact NGOs and non-profits to provide free legal assistance in 170 countries.  Over $70 million in free legal services have been accessed by NGOs and non-profits globally in areas like helping vulnerable women access small-business loans, strengthening the rights of the LGBT community, and prosecute trafficking offenders.

In a more typically exciting alt.legal startup, Paladin is a pro bono marketplace that does something similar, connecting attorneys with pro bono cases specifically matched to their interests, skills and availability. Paladin’s emphasis is on tracking and measuring the impact of their work and community engagement. Started by alumni of Skadden, the United Nations, and Y Combinator startups, Paladin approaches the problem of unmet legal needs with creative, entrepreneurial solutions.

“There are 1.3 million lawyers in the U.S. with a professional responsibility to do 50 hours a year of pro bono, yet 80% of people who need pro bono help don’t get it. Paladin is working to bridge that gap through technology,” said Felicity Conrad, CEO and co-founder. “We’re proud to have already helped lawyers make a difference in the lives of domestic violence survivors, low-income entrepreneurs, immigrants, transgender individuals, and others.”

So we are not without examples altogether in the alt.legal community.

  1. But ultimately, we need to do more.

Sponsored

At the end of the day, Elefant’s challenge is righteous. Alt.legal heavyweights ought to step up and demonstrate a sense of responsibility, leveraging their resources not just by making them available and affordable in the normal course of business, but with intentional action. It is possible that the result of this market shift will be increased access. But to cite it as an unintended consequence of a legal entrepreneur seeking to increase his or her own profit seems underwhelming. Advancing the needs of the public requires effort, a real investment of resource.

And alt.legal’s potential for good is found in spades. Most of the people I know in the alt.legal community are genuinely good-hearted people, motivated by a desire to create and contribute something new to the world, not by greed and profit. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing profit, of course—success in the market ultimately filters the best ideas and spurs the best innovation, and there is a tension for every for-profit startup to achieve revenue growth. But there’s also a long-standing tradition of serving the public, pro bono publico, as an ingrained sense of social responsibility in the legal profession, and it is one we should carry forward into the future of law.

Perhaps most intriguing is the value that the alt.legal contributions have to helping people in need of free legal assistance. There’s a lot of value to provide.

So I challenge every alt.legal business we’ve ever covered, encountered or worked with to commit to some truly pro bono contribution by the end of the first quarter in 2017. Every organization that meets this challenge should contact me directly, via email or Twitter (@edsohn80), and we will highlight the most compelling efforts in a column next spring.

This is a time for American heroes, and we reach for the stars.

Earlier: Solos Stand Tall Against Alt-Right; alt.legal Sits It Out.

Ed Sohn is VP, Product Management and Partnerships, for Thomson Reuters Legal Managed Services. After more than five years as a Biglaw litigation associate, Ed spent two years in New Delhi, India, overseeing and innovating legal process outsourcing services in litigation. Ed now focuses on delivering new e-discovery solutions with technology managed services. You can contact Ed about ediscovery, legal managed services, expat living in India, theology, chess, ST:TNG, or the Chicago Bulls at edward.sohn@thomsonreuters.com or via Twitter (@edsohn80). (The views expressed in his columns are his own and do not reflect those of his employer, Thomson Reuters.)

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