The World Justice Project estimates that 5 billion people worldwide have unmet legal needs. This includes people who are unable to get justice for their everyday problems. According to A2J Tech’s home page, 92 percent of civil legal problems reported by Americans with low incomes have received inadequate or zero legal assistance.
The company is described as a social enterprise that uses technology to improve access and justice. The company, for instance, created a platform that allowed tenants to create Covid-19 eviction prevention letters.
Affordable Legal Service
“We work with legal assistance organizations and non-profits with a lot technology projects and grants,” stated Mauricio Duarte who is a justice entrepreneur at A2J Tech. We also collaborate with law firms to invent and provide affordable services at a much lower cost than their normal rates. These projects can include online documents or online forms. We can also help legal technology companies without a development team.
Duarte has extensive experience in venture capital, startups, international arbitration and other dispute resolution mechanisms. Prior to joining A2J Tech, he was primarily focused on the use of technology to resolve disputes.
Duarte stated that “in the legal space there isn’t a lot education about how technology can be used.” Technology is sometimes seen as an enemy by attorneys. This is based on the false assumption that it is putting attorneys out of work. This is because they don’t understand technology. It is a tool that can be used to improve efficiency in the legal sector.
A2J, he stated, hopes to fill the void in education and content on legal technology, how and how it works, and they have done this by creating online courses about legal technology.
Profitability is not the ‘Mission’
Duarte stated that “We are focused on our mission, not ‘profitability.” We offer services at an affordable price to provide innovative solutions for legal aid organizations, law companies, legal tech firms, and other users of the legal system. We often work with nonprofits and legal aid organizations to meet their technology needs.
He said, “We provide technology to improve access and justice.” They offer a range of services, including website development, graphic design and project management as well as more complex services such document automation, custom software development, and document automation.
Duarte explained that A2J would first assess the client’s financial and technical requirements before contacting them. We would then decide whether to develop a custom solution for the client or create a minimum viable product using pre-existing, no-code technologies. The attorney wouldn’t need to be an expert in order to modify, edit, or add customizations to the solution. We would then automate the forms in order to provide the desired experience. Depending on the project, we could assist with digital marketing.
A2J Tech is a client of the 2018 Duke Law Tech Lab Grand Prize winner Hello Divorce. This tech-enabled process reduces divorce costs by using software and expert advice.
A Fairer Legal System
Maya Markovich (executive director of the trade group Justice Technology Association) stated that “Legal services organizations, and pro bono, are doing incredible work, but they’re overwhelmed and under-resourced which leaves a large and underserved population in communities unable to access its rights.”
She praised the efforts of A2J Tech. “We need new models and technology can and should help us to achieve that. Companies that provide justice technology solutions for people to navigate legal matters foster hope, independence and self-empowerment in order to make the legal system fairer.
The post Legal Innovationators: A2JTech was first published on Attorney at Law Magazine.