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Levelling up access to justice (Pt 4)

08 October 2021 / Roger Smith
Issue: 7951 / Categories: Opinion
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In the final instalment of this series, Roger Smith assesses the state of not-for-profit legal tech at home & abroad

In many countries, not-for-profit agencies play a role in the delivery of access to justice. In the US, such organisations are major deliverers of civil and criminal legal services. Canada and Australia have differing mixes of private and NGO (not for profit, non-government organisation) provision. In England and Wales, though often ignored in discussion of legal aid, the not-for-profit sector plays a valuable and complex role in its delivery—from the national diagnostic and referral work of the Citizens Advice service to the more geographically spotty provision of the roughly 45 law centres still providing representation with poverty law. The deployment of technology in the not-for-profit field follows this patchwork approach.

Not-for-profit organisations are strapped for cash. They do not have the retained profits to invest in technology. Many exist hand to mouth—though their very survival during the Covid pandemic has required them to develop a capacity to work online. This

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

FOIL—Bridget Tatham

FOIL—Bridget Tatham

Forum of Insurance Lawyers elects president for 2026

Gibson Dunn—Robbie Sinclair

Gibson Dunn—Robbie Sinclair

Partner joinslabour and employment practice in London

Muckle LLP—Ella Johnson

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Real estate dispute resolution team welcomes newly qualified solicitor

NEWS
Solicitors are installing panic buttons and thumb print scanners due to ‘systemic and rising’ intimidation including death and arson threats from clients
Ministers’ decision to scrap plans for their Labour manifesto pledge of day one protection from unfair dismissal was entirely predictable, employment lawyers have said
Cryptocurrency is reshaping financial remedy cases, warns Robert Webster of Maguire Family Law in NLJ this week. Digital assets—concealable, volatile and hard to trace—are fuelling suspicions of hidden wealth, yet Form E still lacks a section for crypto-disclosure
NLJ columnist Stephen Gold surveys a flurry of procedural reforms in his latest 'Civil way' column
Paper cyber-incident plans are useless once ransomware strikes, argues Jack Morris of Epiq in NLJ this week
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