Technology and Justice - can technology help make the UK justice system more transparent and accessible to those who need it?
Metadata
Date: "2016-04-25"
Title: [Technology & Justice](http://www.meetup.com/techforgood/)
Scheduled_start_time: 18:30
Scheduled_end_time: 21:30
Subtitle: "Can Technology help make the UK justice system more transparent and accessible to those who need it?"
Location: London
Country: GB
Institutions: Bethnal Green Ventures, [Runway East](https://www.google.com/maps/place/10+Finsbury+Square,+London,+UK/@51.5212446,-0.0896937,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x48761caeb1aad1db:0xd136380926d8c84?hl=en)
Departments: "N/A"
Speakers: Katherine Vaughan, Julia Salaky, Tom Wynne-Morgan, Jessica Morley, Frances Singleton
Audio_URL: "N/A"
Video_URL: "N/A"
Intro from the webpage:
Technology and Justice - can technology help make the UK justice system more transparent and accessible to those who need it?
This event will explore opportunities for technology to enhance the public's understanding of the justice system in the UK - whether from the position of a claimant or defendant in the courts, as a witness or as a victim of crime.
Here's our fantastic lineup of speakers for the night:
Katherine Vaughan from Citizens Advice - following CA's recent publication of "Standing Alone - going to the family court without a lawyer", Katherine will discuss the dramatic increase in people representing themselves in the family courts as a result of cuts to legal aid. By bringing to light some of the key challenges of being a litigant in person, it's possible to recognise how technology can assist in making justice more accessible to those that need it.
Julia Salasky, founder and CEO of CrowdJustice, the UK's first crowdfunding platform for litigation. CrowdJustice brings together individuals and communities to fund legal action, and has been featured as a "game changer" in TechCrunch, Forbes, the Financial Times, the Guardian and the BBC. It has successfully helped claimants raise £450,000 for cases including a major national legal challenge by junior doctors, and a successful intervention to the Supreme Court to change the law on joint enterprise.
Tom Wynne-Morgan, service designer, working within the Ministry of Justice. Tom has worked on lots of innovative digital projects which look to revolutionise our interaction with the courts, through services such as 'making a claim to the employment tribunal' and Digital Divorce. Tom has a unique insight into the way that policy makers and service designers interact and work together to deliver a smarter and more people-centred justice system.
Jessica Morley, on the executive team for Chayn, an open source project to empower women against violence and oppression and Project Manager of Ammal, Chayn's personal development network for women. Jessica will discuss how Chayn's digital tools and online education projects such as "How to Build Your Own Domestic Violence Case Without a Lawyer" empower women to understand their rights, protect themselves against violence and enable them to access justice.
Jin Ho Verdonschot and Frances Singleton from HiiL will be joining us by video link from the Netherlands. They helped develop and launch the Rechtwijzer project - a pioneering online dispute resolution system in the Netherlands, which allows people to process disputes outside of the court system. From the 600 divorces that have gone through the platform to date, they have compiled evidence to show that the system improves efficiency in terms of cost and time, and that the user experience has been greatly enhanced in comparison to taking a divorce through the courts. The Rechtwijzer project is being developed to support disputes between landlords and tenants and in the employment sector and is being adopted by other regions, such as British Columbia.
This meetup will follow the usual format of drinks, with talks kicking off at 7.00pm and community announcements at the end, with time to finish off any leftover beers afterwards.
For the first time, we will be charging a small amount for this Meetup (£4), but this will be refunded on the night. It’s a bit of an experiment to test ways of managing numbers.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Talk 1 - Frances Singleton, HiiL
Video linkup via skype.
The emerging area of Online Dispute Resolution(ODR) - billed as the future by a number of leading justices and ministers - lower the cost and boost availability by taking courts online and making the best of tools.
A growth market, there are a number of players currently:
- Youstice <- Well known in the US
- Modria <- current partners with HiiL
- EU <- More and more governments are getting involved, eg. EU portal
Canada also has something similar in the Civil Resolution Tribunal.
Most of the focus currently is on Small claims, ecommerce and person to person financial disputes,
"Really ODR hasn't gone much beyond these areas at this point" - Frances Singleton
but, there's great optimism for the future...
"Perhaps early in 2017 we'll see a broadening of the model into new areas" - A senior UK legal figure who's name I missed (Oops - Huw)
Which brings us to..
Focus on Divorce currently but they're also being used increasingly for landlord-tenant disputes and debt collection/financial disputes.
The core part is a platform to allow inputting from both parties ("A bit like google docs" - Frances) to allow both parties to create "model agreements".
The aim is to:
"Encourage people to take disputes into their own hands but if they need help they can hand over to a mediator" - Frances Singleton
The platform works to ensure that both parties are able to negotiate and are happy but also to pull in mediation where needed, and expert review to ensure that the agreement will be recognised by a court.
There project has been shown to reduce the cost of disputes from an average of €5,000 to €10,000 down to €500 (It's not clear what that is spent on - Huw).
"Obviously it's nice that it costs less, but some of the real value is that both parties have been able to work through difficult problems with their partners, in a safe space, and get help where they need it. They feel like they've been able to take more control over the process. - Frances Singleton
Ironically with our English language platform we've found that 15% of our users have gotten back together during proceedings. - Frances Singleton
Talk 2 - Katherine Vaughan, Policy Researcher, Citizens Advice Bureau
She begins by live demoing the citizen's advice bureau live search tool (<- stunning some of the difficulties people are searching for info on...)
Standing alone: going to the family court without a lawyer - Blog Standing alone: going to the family court without a lawyer - Report
Her premise the justice system is difficult to use, completely archaic in places (many aspects remain entirely paper based) and isn't set up to help people represent themselves (especially important post-legal aid!).
there's a bright new future for the justice system, online courts are going to be very important in the future... but people have problems now. - Katherine Vaughan
The cuts the legal aid have had a huge impact on people. Lots of people who would have had a legislator no longer do, even people who wish to represent themselves face a daunting array of tasks before they can even get into the courtroom.
People just don't know where to go for advice. - Katherine Vaughan
Language is a huge problem (really old fashioned and inaccessible, designed for those with legal training).
An example of the consequence of this is: 1 in 5 divorce forms get returned, not because they aren't concentrating but because the forms are so complex. (A later speaker chimes in on this point, saying that one of the top reasons forms are returned is because the place of marriage and names of both parties must be reproduced on the form exactly as they were written on the marriage certificate... Putting 'Townington' if it was written 'Townington on Thames' would be cause for rejection)
CourtNav - A tool designed to help people navigate filing out the form.
The user is presented with a simple array of Yes/No questions which is then fed into a complex branching tree diagram behind the scenes. Where the user inputs two bits of information that contradict/conflict they are prompted to amend the answer. The final form is then run past a Citizen's Advice Trained solicitor/lawyer.
As a result where 1 in 5 divorce forms were previously being rejected, 100% of those submitted via the tool have been accepted by the legal system.
This is a really good example of where understanding user need can be really helpful in. - Katherine Vaughan
Talk 3 - Julia Salasky - Founder of Crowd Justice
She starts by asking how many in the room (perhaps 30-40 people) have accessed the legal system as a consumer. Perhaps 10 put up hands.
She notes that is more than she would have expected for a room of this size.
typically people don't think the system is accessible to them so they don't use it - Julia Salasky
She agrees with previous speakers that the legal system is seen as archaic:
when you think of the legal system 'tech' isn't exactly what comes to mind... It's just not an easy system to navigate as a consumer - Julia Salasky
So...Crowd Justice, a crowdfuding platform to help people raise funds for cases. As with many crowd funding platforms it goes beyond just generating money, it helps form a community around a story.
people feel like their community is coming around them and it makes there journey through the legal system slightly less daunting.
She proceeds to give us a run through of the system and how it works.
Caters for both Class action level interventions (eg. Junior Drs Strike appears to have had a couple of successful rounds of funding on the platform).
One questioner is worried about the problems of going so public with a case, might it not hurt settlements etc?
Her answer: If there's a chance it'll be settled before trial then perhaps crowdjustice isn't right... but by the time it goes to court all proceedings will be a matter of public record anyway. There are huge benefits to going public, usually the media plays a role here but they have their own selection criteria for who they promote. An effective campaign can allow the user of the justice system to play a role here too.
Talk 4 - Jessica Morley - Founder of CHAYN
CHAYN, building open source projects empowering women to lead happier and healthier lives.
For instance, "How can you build a domestic violence case without a lawyer"?
It's an international network, operating in 7 different languages and across different legal systems. The common factor is that they're are all using Tech to empower women.
if people have access to the information themselves it will give them confidence and build capacity - Jessica Morley
Soul Medicine: A project aimed at the mental health of displaced women. Offers daily advice and "positive affirmation" to women along side a "crowd sourced human biology course"
Crowd sourcing is an important element of the project. Allowing the information to exist in "Living Documents" that are currently being revised, and improved.
Everything is in there "it's a live document people change it" - Jessica Morley
Another example, A document on - How you might collect your evidence of domestic violence, what kind of evidence is legally acceptable, coaching on how to write a personal statement (report here)
Q. How do you manage a living document between so many different legal systems, do they diverge or are they held together - how do you share best practice?
A. London operates as a central organising node- but each country network has a great amount of autonomy - they are constantly on slack so there's a lot of communciation - but in short it's down to active management and communication between projects.
He believes that all good policy and policy making is well viewed as "service design".
Core project: Helping families working on separation avoid having to go through court. In designing it they're working hard to establish what government's role in these kind of choices should be. (Do they just provide the Justice, or do they shape the field, is it ok for the second/third sector to be leading or should gov?)
It's not through lack of enthusiasm or good will. Many policy makers come across as very engaged but the Justice System is massive - it's like turning an oil tanker and there's a large amount of vested 'middle interest' in keeping things the way it has always been.
my experience of meeting some of the people at the top, is that they're actually very interested in change but there's a lot of people in the middle who get stuck. - Tom Wynne-Morgan
The difference between great ideas and wishful thinking can be slight:
A great idea can fall into wishful thinking if it's not exposed to evidence based analysis, or iteration.
These are the things good service design should be striving to provide.
An example of backwards user design in the MOJ - on a D8 divorce form you have to write down the place of marriage as it is written on the marriage cert (exactly) it needs to be precisely the same. When they investigated why this 1-for-1 basis was set up, it was clear that there was no reason at all.
When we investigated why, there's no reason at all.
There are positive movements from within government - a general move is underway to push for government to be a service as an open register - releasing more public data and allow others to build good services on top without becoming sole intermediaries that they can charge rent on (<- most of that is my editorialising - Huw).
The will is there, both from the top and the bottom - Online courts are likely to be a bigger factor in future - but there is a lot of entrenched interests.
It's like turning an oil tanker - it will take time.
hashtag #tech4good
There's google doc
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Legal Geek <- another meetup group "biggest law tech community in the UK" - they have events.
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Witness Confidnet Difficulty of reporting and then difficulty of submitting evidence They have an app called "self evident" that reports to the police and support agencies, supports submission of digital evidence.
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Inside Out - Runs mentoring out of wormwood scrubs - they're looking for more mentors.
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CloudCourt? Commercial cases, that could be paid for by the individuals, they "can pay the same price as a postage stamp to file cases online". CloudCourt gives the MOJ a case management system tor run it. "Seems like they want to be an intermediary for the justice system".
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Centrepoint are having an event on the 7th of May. Data vis and tableau specialists. Looking for help updating their data vis stuff.