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29 January 2016 / Roger Smith
Issue: 7684 / Categories: Opinion , Legal aid focus
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Letter from America

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Roger Smith reports on the US legal aid situation

This month, your tireless NLJ correspondent took himself to San Antonio, Texas. I do not, in general, recommend this destination. It contains an over-developed Riverwalk, an over-hyped Alamo, a bunch of military bases and the rest is pretty much carparks and hotels. However, for the last couple of years, it has been the home of an interesting conference on technology in the delivery of what we would call legal aid held by the rough equivalent of the Legal Aid Agency (the US Legal Services Corporation (LSC)). Attendance is an intriguing mix of techies, lawyers, managers and salespeople—making the success of opening conversational gambits to strangers more than usually random.

The big picture

The conference was addressed by two big beasts of the American legal establishment—immediate past American Bar Association president William Hubbard and the LSC’s own president, Jim Sandman. Both had a similar message on the impact of technology on the practice of law. It made him think, said Hubbard, revealing a rather surprising knowledge of

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