I attended the ALI Incubator Conference that had the full, cumbersome name of “Enhancing Social Justice Through The Development of Incubator Programs & Residency Programs”. It was held February 27-28, 2015 at California Western School of Law and cosponsored by Touro Law Center, UMKC School of Law, The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services (which has a comprehensive list of all incubator/residency projects at law schools) and the State Bar of California Access to Justice Commission.
At least 30 schools are already running an incubator of some sort and another 50 seem to be launching something in the next 12-18 months. I won’t bury the lede – I liked EVERYTHING about how the incubator movement is shaping up in law schools. Here are my bullets…
- 63% of lawyers in private practice law graduates end up in solo or small firm (2-5 lawyers) practice. (cite: American Bar Association Lawyer Demographics)
- 50% of the people who request assistance from Legal Aid and are eligible for it, are denied access due to insufficient resources. (cite: Documenting the Justice Gap in America)
- There is a “latent legal market” valued in the billions (estimates vary) of people who…
- have a legal problem, are not eligible for legal aid and cannot afford expensive representation, or,
- don’t know or trust lawyers and even if they can afford some representation, decide to represent themselves (pro se, self-represented litigants), or,
- don’t know they have a legal problem (cite: Richard Granat, The Latent Market for Legal Services)
- Venture capital investment in the finding, managing and delivery of legal services, including unbundled services is at an all time high (cite: David Perla, Today’s Legal Start-Up Ecosystem: Cambrian Explosion or Crowded House?)
The incubator movement is focused on getting law graduates ready for solo/small firm practice. This can serve both the Justice Gap and the Latent Market and possibly use Technology or Entrepreneurship to address the changing nature of the legal services and legal education market.
What’s not to like?
The organizers of the this conference – and the movement – are serious, open-minded, focused and enthusiastic about finding a formula – albeit a flexible one – that can be replicated across almost all law schools. Students in attendance who are in incubators right now or recent “graduates” were honest and revealing about the travails of starting your own practice, but also grateful for the camaraderie and support provided by the incubators.
Law school Deans are threading a needle wanting to help their students succeed without incurring the liability of malpractice and not breaking the bank with a new, expensive law school service. This is a balancing of needs and wants of the market, the professionals and the educators and those notions were clearly on the table throughout the conference.
The access to justice angle was not given short shrift. Whether it’s volunteer work, probono, “low-bono”, unbundled services or limited license representations, there were successful examples and back-and-forth discussion about solving the problem of “too many lawyers, not enough lawyering”. The only thing missing from the conference was how to deal with student debt, but you can’t fix everything at once and getting graduates into jobs is one way to start addressing that.
Incubatees in a Sea of Debt
CALI’s interest in this space is related to our work with A2J Author as a possible tool that helps law schools teach their students how to run more efficient law practice through automation. The same software that helps pro ses fill out their own court forms could be used by attorneys as an efficient gateway to unbundled services or possibly full representation. We are already experiencing success in training law students in A2J Author through our A2J Author Course Project – why not graduates?
A2J Author could be used as a screening tool for client intake or a partial DIY for clients who can get 75% of the data entered before going to a lawyer to review the work and finish the step. I believe there is overlap between the access to justice goals, efficiency in law practice management and legal education of tomorrow’s lawyers here and A2J Author is our practical and real-world way of exploring those intersections.
There are plans to form a consortium of incubating law schools to share best practices and even explore the idea of inter-school incubators- i.e. graduates from one law school participating in an incubator from another school. All of this is very nascent, but moving fast. If you are the least bit interested, you should get on the discussion list to keep apprised of developments. Email Fred Rooney at Touro to get hooked up (frooney@tourolaw.edu).
John Mayer
Executive Director, CALI
jmayer@cali.org
@johnpmayer
