In 2013, the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) published a significant study titled “Report of The Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice” which underscored the potential of technology in closing the justice gap. A decade later, LSC has launched another comprehensive report, “The Next Frontier: Harnessing Technology to Close the Justice Gap,” marking their broadest tech initiative to date.
This new report serves as a continuation and an evolution of its 2013 predecessor, reflecting the transformation in technology, especially in artificial intelligence, that has taken place over the years. Amidst the backdrop of their 50th anniversary, LSC has set forth seven key recommendations aimed at enhancing legal service organizations’ integration and use of advanced technologies. These strategies aim to assist the country’s 130 LSC-funded organizations to more adeptly engage technology in serving low-income Americans.
The report emerges from a well-coordinated, collaborative process involving more than 50 experts, encompassing technology leaders, legal service practitioners, and court personnel. This initiative commenced with workshops and proceeded through focused workgroups tackling vital areas such as baseline tech adoption, advanced practices, impact measurement, and AI integration.
The Justice Gap Report of 2022 by LSC painted a stark picture, revealing that 92% of low-income Americans receive inadequate or no legal help for civil legal issues. In light of such statistics, the summit’s recommendations, detailed in LSC’s latest publication, constitute a “call to action” to deploy transformative tech solutions to improve access to justice.
Among the recommendations, LSC is urged to reframe technology as a core mission rather than a luxury, streamline access to technological resources, explore new funding approaches, and enhance data-driven decision-making. The report also highlights the importance of responsible AI innovation, proposing the establishment of sandbox environments for safe experimentation and advocating data privacy principles amidst AI integration.
Furthermore, the report accentuates the modernization of self-help tools to improve accessibility for self-represented litigants. This strategy is aimed at bridging the divide where low-income individuals rely on self-navigation in legal landscapes due to resource limitations.
Compared to the 2013 report that advocated for then-novel technologies like cloud computing, the 2025 report delineates strategies aligned with today’s AI-driven, data-centric environment. The emphasis on replicable, scalable projects and user-centered designs seeks to invoke a cultural shift in tech adoption across legal services.
The new report calls for collaborative efforts across various stakeholders— from courts and law schools to tech vendors— to collectively innovate and reform legal services towards minimizing the justice gap for low-income Americans. As Margaret Hagan, Executive Director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford University, articulated in the report, the current technological momentum presents an opportune moment to leverage AI and related tools for expanding access to justice.