Talk Justice An LSC Podcast: Recent Episodes
Legal Services Corporation
The Legal Services Corporation's Talk Justice podcast features leaders from the legal community, business and government exploring aspects of access to justice.
Experts discuss disaster preparedness and the role of civil legal aid in recovery on LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast. September is National Disaster Preparedness Month. Since 2022 the federal government has issued more than 75 major disaster declarations across the U.S. and its territories. Yet even with the increasing frequency and ferocity of natural disasters, the overwhelming majority of Americans are unprepared if disaster strikes.
Experts from Bay Area Legal Services and Florida Youth SHINE discuss developments in access to legal information for foster youth on LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast. A new website and app, FosterPower, enables Florida’s foster youth to easily access information on their rights, and the state of Florida has passed a bill requiring more information for foster youth.
Guests from Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) join Cat Moon to discuss creating the nation’s first Innovation Lab housed in a civil legal aid organization on the latest episode of LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast.
Senior Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit David Tatel joins LSC President Ron Flagg to share his memories of the 1974 founding of the Legal Services Corporation, as well as his view on the roles of courts and lawyers in the advancement of access to justice on this episode of LSC's “Talk Justice.”
Legal leaders from Arkansas, Kentucky and Texas discuss how their organizations acquired opioid settlement funds and the impactful legal services they are providing to those affected by opioid use disorder on LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast. A 2019 report from LSC’s Opioid Task Force describes the need for civil legal services in response to the opioid epidemic.
Two legal tech experts join Talk Justice’s Molly McDonough to discuss how emerging tools with generative AI could fit into the future of legal services—and who they’ll be accessible to—on the latest episode of LSC's Talk Justice podcast.
The authors of the article “Reducing Family Separations in New York City: The Covid-19 Experiment and a Call for Change” join Talk Justice Co-host Molly McDonough to discuss reducing child removals in New York City and systemic flaws in the child welfare system on the latest episode of LSC's Talk Justice podcast.
Host: Molly McDonough, Legal Talk Network Podcast Producer and Founder of Molly McDonough Media, LLC.
Guests:
Dori Rapaport, Executive Director at Legal Aid Services of Northeastern Minnesota
David Estep, Supervising Attorney at Legal Aid of West Virginia
Honorable Jeanne M. Robison, Salt Lake City Justice Court Judge
Michigan Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack joins LSC President Ron Flagg to discuss access to the courts in the wake of the pandemic, lessons learned from the bench and her next chapter in access-to-justice advocacy.
Tech tools can minimize tedious, routine legal work, allowing attorneys more time to dedicate to higher-level strategic tasks and their clients. Tech also enables unrepresented people to better navigate complex legal systems. This is how streamlining repetitive processes improves the efficiency of legal services organizations and promotes increased access to justice. Guests Include:
Ransom Wydner, Vice President of Pro Bono and Social Impact at SixFifty
Sam Flynn, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder at Josef
Martha Minow joins LSC President Ron Flagg to discuss access to justice, law schools and her new role as the MacArthur Foundation’s board chair on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast. Martha Minow, 300 th Anniversary Professor, Harvard Law School; Co-chair of the Access-to-Justice Board at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Former Harvard Law School Dean; Former LSC Board Member.
There is a massive disconnect between what courts were designed to do—solve legal disputes through lawyer-driven, adversarial litigation—and what these courts are asked to do today—help people without lawyers navigate complex social, economic and interpersonal challenges, most of which are deeply tied to structural inequality. As a result, the judicial role is in upheaval, according to our guests. In this episode, we discuss how we got here and if we can fix it.
Guests:
Colleen F. Shanahan, Clinical Professor of Law, Columbia University Law School; Founder of Columbia Law School’s Community Advocacy Lab
Anna Carpenter, Professor of Law, Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law; Senior Director, Presidential Initiatives, Office of the President, University of Utah; Founder and Director of the Justice Lab at Utah College of Law
Alyx Mark, Assistant Professor of Government, Wesleyan University.
Article: “America’s Lawyerless Courts,” written by Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark and Jessica Steinberg.
There is a massive disconnect between what courts were designed to do—solve legal disputes through lawyer-driven, adversarial litigation—and what these courts are asked to do today—help people without lawyers navigate complex social, economic and interpersonal challenges, most of which are deeply tied to structural inequality. As a result, the judicial role is in upheaval, according to our guests. In this episode, we discuss how we got here and if we can fix it.
Guests:
Colleen F. Shanahan, Clinical Professor of Law, Columbia University Law School; Founder of Columbia Law School’s Community Advocacy Lab
Anna Carpenter, Professor of Law, Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law; Senior Director, Presidential Initiatives, Office of the President, University of Utah; Founder and Director of the Justice Lab at Utah College of Law
Alyx Mark, Assistant Professor of Government, Wesleyan University.
Article: “America’s Lawyerless Courts,” written by Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark and Jessica Steinberg.
Law school leaders discuss how their academic institutions work towards expanding access to justice on the latest episode of LS's “Talk Justice” podcast. Thomas Miles, Dean and Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School. William Treanor, Dean and Executive Vice President, Georgetown University Law School; Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair. Miguel Willis, Innovator in Residence at the University of Penn’s Carey Law School Future of the Profession Initiative (FPI); Executive Director of Access to Justice Tech Fellows.
Law school leaders discuss how their academic institutions work towards expanding access to justice on the latest episode of LS's “Talk Justice” podcast. Thomas Miles, Dean and Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School. William Treanor, Dean and Executive Vice President, Georgetown University Law School; Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair. Miguel Willis, Innovator in Residence at the University of Penn’s Carey Law School Future of the Profession Initiative (FPI); Executive Director of Access to Justice Tech Fellows.
Leaders from Georgetown University’s Health Justice Alliance discuss how the medical-legal partnership (MLP) benefits both law and medical students on the latest episode of Talk Justice.
Dr. Ana Caskin, deputy medical director of the Health Justice Alliance and director of the Anacostia and Roosevelt School based Health Centers
Professor Vicki Girard, faculty director of the Georgetown Health Justice Alliance
Dr. Eileen Moore, medical director of the Health Justice Alliance and associate dean of the Georgetown School of Medicine
Legal experts discuss the access-to-justice implications of the increasing number of climate emergencies in the U.S. and the role attorneys play.
Ariadna Godreau Aubert, founder and executive director of Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico Jeanne Ortiz-Ortiz, pro bono and strategic initiatives manager at Pro Bono Net Linda Anderson Stanley, senior manager for disaster resilience programming at Equal Justice Works Ariadna
Associate Justice Anne McKeig of the Minnesota Supreme Court joins Talk Justice to discuss her trailblazing legal career and how courts can expand access to justice.
Legal experts share their perspectives on the expungement process. In this episode, we're talking about criminal records – or at least, how to get rid of them. In the U.S. approximately 1/3 of all people have a criminal record. Having a criminal record can affect one's job, professional licensing, ability to get housing or government benefits and much more. While legal aid helps many navigate the, often difficult, process clearing their criminal record, the problem is larger than their capacity. In this episode, host Jason Tashea sits down with legal experts to discuss how technology and policy are changing the ways these records impact peoples lives and how the government can better operate - giving people a second chance.
Legal Experts: Yousef Kassim, founder and CEO of EasyExpunctions, Sarah Esther Lageson, associate professor at Rutgers University-Newark School of Criminal Justice, and Noella Sudbury, founder and CEO of Rasa Public Benefit Corporation.
Newly appointed National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) President and CEO April Frazier Camara shares her goals for the NLADA and the personal history that led her to advocate for access to justice.
Is there a conservative case for supporting civil legal aid? Prominent conservative and libertarian thought leaders share their perspectives on access-to-justice issues and recent regulatory changes.
As the justice system continues to digitize, more data is collected and accessible. This information is often a record of some of the darkest hour. The panel of privacy and data security experts discuss how the shift from paper file storage trades risks to losing the hard copies for unpredictable risks to loss of personal privacy and data being used in unexpected and potentially harmful ways long after their legal issue is resolved. The speed of innovation in data collection is outpacing the creation of data policies and cybersecurity practices. What are the additional implications to under-served and marginalized communities? Jason Tashea, a member of LSC’s Emerging Leaders Council, hosts the Talk Justice conversation with guests Zach Zarnow, principal court management consultant for the National Center for State Courts (NCSC); Jeff Harvey, CEO of Community Legal Services in Florida; and Shauna Dillavou, CEO of data security service Brightlines. The digitization of the justice system far outpaces the creation of data protection policies. This has consequences for how data is used and what cybersecurity measures protect it. Courts and legal services providers are often left to decide for themselves how to appropriately handle vast amounts of virtual case data. This sensitive information concerning the individuals involved could have wide-ranging negative effects on their lives if shared, stolen or sold. Generally, court proceedings are public, but that meaning has shifted. “What does it mean to be public? I think when the laws were written around what is public and an open court, there wasn’t a public that was global in your pocket...that’s probably not the public we were meant to have in our open courts,” says Dillavou. The individuals who interface with the courts likely have no real understanding of how their information is collected and stored, and where that information may go. Harvey says that for lawyers to low-income people in need of legal assistance, consent isn’t straightforward, either. Lawyers explain to their clients that in order to give free legal services, they have to provide information to their funders, but people facing crises like eviction or domestic violence aren’t usually concerned with, or even thinking about, the privacy implications of this data sharing. When your participation in the legal system is compulsory, the destination of your data is out of your hands. This puts the courts in a powerful position, with a great deal of responsibility. “The courts have users that they don’t pick, but their users don’t pick them either, so they have a duty to be really thoughtful about this, and make sure that when they’re talking about terms of service and contracts that they’re discussing data privacy: does the vendor have access to this or not? Can we control whether they have access to it or not?” says Zarnow. “As we’ve accelerated digital adoption, we ’ve really moved into a new era, particularly for the courts—these are the kinds of questions you can’t afford not to ask anymore.”
Millions of Americans struggle with civil legal problems every day. However, many of the legal aid organizations funded by the LSC do not have the resources needed to meet the demand in the communities they serve. Instead, most low-income Americans do not have sufficient access to legal information, advice or representation. The new report updates and expands on LSC's 2017 Justice Gap Study, providing a fresh assessment of the state of civil legal justice for low-income Americans. It is particularly timely as it explores the justice gap in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a disproportionate impact on low-income Americans. Its findings paint a stark picture of the overwhelming need for civil legal help in the country, and the need for adequate access and equal justice for all. LSC leadership and members speaking on this special LSC episode include:
LSC President Ronald S. Flagg
LSC Board Chair John G. Levi
University of Michigan Football Coach Jim Harbaugh, a member of the LSC Leaders Council
The presidents of the ABA and the Legal Services Corporation sit down on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast to discuss the historic partnership between their organizations and new efforts to bolster legal aid and pro bono.
Experts discuss how consumer debt lawsuits have come to dominate civil courts at the expense of low-income Americans on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice" podcast. Featured Guests: Erika Rickard, project director for civil legal system modernization at the Pew Charitable Trust; Ariel Levinson-Waldman, founding president of Tzedek DC; George Simons, founder and CEO of SoloSuit.
The pandemic has changed the way pro bono legal services are delivered. A new report from the Association of Pro Bono Counsel examines the most positive developments and recommends which ones should be retained.
Experts discuss new technology and other client-centered developments that are helping to close the justice gap in rural communities.
Senior Advisor to the president and American Rescue Plan Coordinator Gene Sperling discusses implementing the historic $1.9 trillion rescue plan and what it means for access to justice.
Experts look at soon-to-be launched launched Justice Technology Association and its plan to build community around efforts to provide innovative and accessible solutions to common legal issues. The association will support initiatives that seek to shape the consumer legal experience for the greater good, drive social impact, increase access to justice and grow the newly minted justice tech market.
Experts discuss legal tech topics like data security, user-centered design, and the digital divide, which were at the forefront of this year’s LSC Innovations in Technology Conference.
Experts discuss how the legal system operates in rural communities and how to expand access to justice in these regions on the latest episode of Talk Justice. -hosted by Legal Service Corporation President Ron Flagg.
A discussion of major developments in 2021 for access to justice and civil legal aid communities, legal technology and regulatory reform.
Host: Jason Tashea, LSC Emerging Leaders Council
Experts discuss how the pandemic and natural disasters affect domestic violence survivors on the latest episode of Talk Justice. Their conversation highlights how the legal system is responding to the increased threat. Host: LSC President Ronald S. Flagg
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused courts—previously slow to adopt new technology—to leap into prioritizing digital services. As legal aid and court services increase the use of online tools, there is a concern that people without access to technology and high-speed internet will be left behind. This gap, referred to as the “digital divide,” is the topic of the latest Talk Justice episode.
Veterans advocates discussed how unfavorable discharges, known as “bad paper,” prevent veterans from accessing the basic benefits and services they need on the latest episode of “Talk Justice,” the Legal Services Corporation’s (LSC) podcast. {produced by the Legal Services Corporation}
Legal experts discuss the role of data in understanding and implementing civil legal aid. Guests James Sandman, president emeritus of the Legal Services Corporation; David Udell, executive director of the National Center for Access to Justice (NCAJ); and Logan Cornett, director of research at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), join LSC Emerging Leaders Council member Jason Tashea to offer their perspectives on the importance of data collection for increasing access to justice.
Former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy III and Rohan Pavuluri, CEO and co-founder of the bankruptcy nonprofit Upsolve, join LSC President Ron Flagg to discuss shifting the narrative on access-to-justice advocacy. {produced by the Legal Services Corporation}
Five Attorneys General discuss civil justice initiatives in their jurisdictions and how they can work more effectively with legal aid providers to help low-income Americans.
Host: Ron Flagg, President of the Legal Services Corporation
Guests: - Joshua Kaul, Attorney General of Wisconsin - Doug Peterson, Attorney General of Nebraska - Karl Racine, Attorney General of the District of Columbia - Ellen Rosenblum, Attorney General of Oregon - Herbert Slatery III, Attorney General of Tennessee {produced by the Legal Services Corporation}
Legal Services Corporation President Ron Flagg discusses how the COVID pandemic is deepening the opioid crisis and complicating the lives of persons in recovery with: - Brandon George, Director of Indiana Addiction Issues Coalition - Mishka Terplan, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Friends of Research Institute; MSP Staff Physician at the University of California San Francisco - Brendan Wood, Equal Justice Works Fellow, Legal Aid of West Virginia {produced by the Legal Services Corporation}
In this episode of Talk Justice, distinguished business leaders discuss the business community’s perspective on the importance of access to justice during the pandemic with LSC President Ron Flagg.
Host: LSC President Ron Flagg
Panelists:
Teresa Wynn Roseborough, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, Home Depot
Kenneth C. Frazier, chairman and CEO, Merck & Co. and co-chair of LSC's Leaders Council
David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co-executive chairman, The Carlyle Group
John F. Schultz, chief operating, legal officer and executive vice-president, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise
{produced by the Legal Services Corporation}
In this episode of Talk Justice, host Jason Tashea sits down with Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-5), co-chair of the Congressional Access to Civil Legal Aid Caucus; Karen Lash of the American University Justice Programs Office and former official at DOJ’s Office for Access to Justice; and Elizabeth Werner, managing attorney at Legal Aid of West Virginia to discuss what President Biden’s executive order re-establishing the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable means for access to justice. {produced by the Legal Services Corporation}
The Legal Service Corporation’s new vice president for legal affairs and general counsel Will A. Gunn discusses his new position and his legal and military experience in an episode of LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast. LSC President Ronald S. Flagg hosts the conversation.
In this episode of Talk Justice, LSC President Ron Flagg discusses how non-lawyer court navigators are expanding access to justice with Mary McClymont, adjunct professor and senior fellow at The Justice Lab, Georgetown University Law Center. McClymont directed a recent Justice Lab survey of how these navigators are assisting self-represented litigants in 15 states and Washington, D.C.
In this episode of LSC's Talk Justice, LSC Emerging Leaders Council member Jason Tashea sat down with John Pollock, staff attorney for the Public Justice Center and the coordinator of the National Coalition for the Civil Right to Counsel; Hazel Remesch, supervising attorney at The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland; and Kathryn Sabbeth, associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina.
Medical-legal partnerships are the focus in this episode of “Talk Justice." LSC Emerging Leaders Council member Jason Tashea hosts a conversation on how MLPs can improve health outcomes with Bethany Hamilton, co-director of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership; Dr. Dawn Haut, CEO at Eskenazi Health Center in Indiana; and Rakuya Trice, deputy director of Indiana Legal Services and the organization’s director of medical-legal partnerships.
In the latest episode of Talk Justice, LSC Board Vice Chair Father Pius Pietrzyk discusses court innovations with Rita H. Blandino, director of the D.C. Court’s Domestic Violence Division, and Paul Tuttle, assistant clerk for the Massachusetts Court of Appeals. The speakers describe the many challenges COVID-19 poses to the justice system and to low-income Americans with legal problems. They share details on how their courts have leveraged technology and partnerships to meet these challenges head on.
In this episode of Talk Justice, recorded live at LSC’s 2021 Innovations in Technology Conference, host Jason Tashea discusses insights and takeaways from the conference with three legal technology leaders: Steven McGarrity, executive director at Community Legal Aid Services; Cat Moon, director of innovation design and lecturer in law at Vanderbilt Law School; and Ilenia Sánchez-Bryson, chief information officer at Legal Services of Greater Miami.
In this episode of Talk Justice, LSC Vice President for Grants Management Lynn Jennings hosts a conversation on how libraries can help close the justice gap. She is joined by Brooke Doyle, project coordinator at WebJunction; Emily Florio, senior research services manager at Hogan Lovells and President of the American Association of Law Libraries; Diane Rodriguez, assistant director at San Francisco Law Library and vice president of the American Association of Law Libraries; and Laura Tuggle, executive director of Southeast Louisiana Legal Services.
Lawyer and legal tech journalist Bob Ambrogi; Amanda Brown, Founder and Executive Director, Lagniappe Law Lab; and Jane Ribadeneyra, LSC’s Program Analyst for Technology, join host Jason Tashea to preview LSC's Innovations in Technology Conference and highlight some of the exciting legal tech projects that will be showcased.
In this episode of Talk Justice, LSC Vice Chair Father Pius Pietrzyk interviews Chris Arnade, author of “Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America.” Leaving behind a 20-year career on Wall Street, Arnade decided to document poverty and addiction in the Bronx and later across the country. His work looks at the resilience of what he calls “America's Back Row”—those who lack the credentials and advantages to get ahead.
In this episode of Talk Justice, host Jason Tashea discusses the daunting challenges to delivering civil legal services in rural and tribal communities with Nikole Nelson, Executive Director of Alaska Legal Services Corp., Rudy Sanchez, Executive Director of DNA-People’s Legal Service, and Rebecca Rapp, General Counsel of Ascendium Education Group who is helping form LSC’s upcoming Rural Task Force.
In this episode of Talk Justice, Texas Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, Michigan Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack and ABA President Patricia Lee Refo join LSC President Ron Flagg to discuss how the COVID pandemic is transforming the courts and the practice of law.
Due to the pandemic, the United States is facing the severest housing crisis in its history, says leading eviction scholar Emily Benfer. In a conversation with LSC President Ron Flagg, Benfer discusses the societal costs of this surge in evictions and the pivotal role legal aid lawyers play in easing those effects.
In this episode of Talk Justice, Legal Services Corporation President Ron Flagg discusses the importance of civil legal aid with the co-founders of the bipartisan Congressional Access to Civil Legal Services Caucus, Reps. Susan Brooks of Indiana and Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts. Reps. Brooks and Kennedy recount how they formed the caucus and the role it has played in advocating for federal funding of LSC. They also explore how the pandemic has sparked a surge in the demand for civil legal aid and how such assistance can address other problems such as racial injustice.
In this episode of Talk Justice, moderator Jim Sandman, President Emeritus of LSC, leads a panel discussion on regulatory reform and how it can expand access to justice. Two leading jurists from states in the vanguard of reform, Utah Supreme Court Justice Constandinos "Deno" Himonas and Arizona Supreme Court Vice Chief Justice Ann Timmer, explore the impact of changes such as licensing paraprofessionals to provide legal services and easing restrictions on fee-sharing and non-lawyer ownership of law firms. Bill Hendersson, a law professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and the editor of Legal Evolution, surveys the relationship between the current regulatory system and the dysfunction in the legal market while Upsolve co-founder Rohan Pavuluri discusses how the current regulatory system hampers access to justice and contributes to racial injustice.
In the inaugural episode of Talk Justice moderator Jason Tashea and three legal technology experts discuss how portals, no-code automation, online classrooms and other developments are expanding and improving pro bono efforts. Documate Co-Founder Dorna Moini, Paladin Co-Founder Kristen Sonday and LSC’s Program Analyst for Technology Jane Ribadeneyra also discuss how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting pro bono and whether innovations developed to address challenges posed by the pandemic might permanently influence the way pro bono is delivered.