In a recent guest post on LawNext, Mark Chandler, former chief legal officer at Cisco Systems, and third-year Stanford law student Jess Lu, expound on the existing problems in the civil justice system, arguing that focusing solely on funding is insufficient for building better civil justice systems.
Chandler and Lu assert that the civil justice system’s inefficiencies make it its own greatest adversary, frustrating its purpose of granting equal access to civil justice. They argue that the excessive complexity and disjointed technology systems and data infrastructures across thousands of local court jurisdictions render the development of efficient legal tech tools virtually impossible.
Referencing a 2019 report by the American Bar Association and a 2023 Duke Center on Law & Tech study , the guest contributors highlighted the problems plaguing justice tech. The study indicated the constant emergence and subsequent demise of new technologies and their struggles in finding sustainable business models.
The Filing Fairness Project at Stanford Law School, where Chandler is currently a lecturer and fellow, has begun addressing these issues. Operating in partnership with several state and local court systems, the project seeks to establish the conditions for developing sustainable, multistate solutions to these problematic filing processes.
The authors anticipate two necessary steps for effective court modernization and standardization. First, they argue for replacing or standardizing court forms with guided interviews to simplify the intake process. Second, they urge for standardizing case filing systems, asserting that the varying requirements across different jurisdictions exacerbate the problem.
The key takeaway from their discussion is not just a call for more funding, but for a systemic overhaul to streamline the legal processes that currently serve as barriers rather than conduits to access civil justice. They argue that no amount of monetary investment can solve a problem that is ultimately about the modernization and standardization of the civil justice system.