“We are very pleased to have commissioned this Report from Roger Smith. We hope that the Report will stimulate others to let us know of advances that they are making or are aware of others making in this important area of using information technology to provide low cost legal service to people. These developments are not a magic bullet but taken together they can make a difference to the lives of a lot of people. We intend to update the Report on an annual basis as a record of developments in the provision of IT based legal service.”
Guy Beringer
Chairman of Governors
Opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and should not be taken to be those of The Legal Education Foundation.
Law, Technology and Access to Justice
Roger Smith maintains a blog which discusses various aspects of technology and the law.
- Leaving the Table: out of the game
- We are all the same underneath: Legal Geek annual London conference
- Advancing the Frontier: Interactive Assistance
- JUSTICE, THE UK CONSTITUTION AND WALES
- Technology and access to justice: top ten tips for funders and grantees
- Technology and the Delivery of Family Law
- The Limitations of Delivery
- Pinball, International Conferences and Access to Justice
- Zoom and Legal Outreach: the Manchester experience
- Division in the courts – small claims this way, others that
- Zoom and Community Legal Outreach: Still Reaching Out after all these Years
- Ukraine: an assault on the rule of law, access to justice and a vigorous tech economy
- Early legal advice: he had it; shouldn’t everyone?
- Looking to the World
- Passports, Barriers and Bridges
The full blog can be found here:
Latest Report
The annual reports are updated periodically through the year to reflect the latest developments and maintain currency:
Earlier Updates
Periodic updates to the original report are listed here:
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Winter 2018/19 – UpdateSpring 2018 – Annual ReportWinter 2017/18 – UpdateSpring 2017 – Annual ReportWinter 2016/17 – UpdateSummer 2016 – UpdateSpring 2016 – Annual ReportWinter 2015 – UpdateSummer 2015 – UpdateSpring 2015 – Update
Original Report – December 2014
The original report was presented as a summary report and a series of working papers.
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Summary and RecommendationsThe ContextEvolving Delivery Models – The Example of Family LawPortalsLitigants in Person, Public Legal Education & SkillsComparing Websites – Material CriteriaFrom Online Information to ResolutionLeadership, Culture & Creativity
Referenced Work
We’ve provided links here to documents referenced in the paper.
Roger Smith OBE
Roger Smith OBE is a researcher, journalist and consultant in the field of legal services and human rights. He is a solicitor; a visiting professor at London South Bank University; and a past director of the Legal Action Group, JUSTICE and West Hampstead Community Law Centre.
He has also been director of legal education and training for the Law Society of England and Wales and acted for a time as its director of policy. He edits a bimonthly newsletter for the International Legal Aid Group and writes monthly columns for the Law Society Gazette and New Law Journal. He has undertaken various consultancies on legal aid in countries of Eastern Europe and published a number of international comparative studies.
