| UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
JAMES E. ROGERS COLLEGE OF LAW |
AUGUST 4, 2021 | | |
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Aug 16
First Day of Law Classes
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Aug 27
Save the Date: LawCats Live
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Greetings,
This week, we share terrific news from Arizona Law’s Innovation for Justice (i4J) lab, which will now expand its impact through a partnership with the University of Utah's business school.
i4J enters into this partnership recognizing that 1 in 3 households will face a civil legal issue this year, and existing legal services cannot meet the need. The justice gap that exists in this country requires creative, interdisciplinary and disruptive problem-solving.
Through this partnership, i4J and Arizona Law are rising to the challenge for education to do more in engaging with social justice issues in our community and training the next generation of thinkers, doers, and leaders.
The partnership is particularly exciting as Arizona and Utah are the only two states in the U.S. to modify their unauthorized practice of law and legal practice ownership restrictions to allow new models of legal services.
This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to enroll in project-based access to justice work not available at any other law school.
Read on!
Until the footnotes,
Marc
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Innovation for Justice Expands Impact through Partnership with Utah Business School | |
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A new collaboration positions Innovation for Justice (i4J) as the first cross-discipline, cross-institution, cross-jurisdiction legal innovation lab in the United States.
i4J, a social-justice-focused legal innovation lab that was launched at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in 2018, is expanding its operations to the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business in Fall 2021. The new partnership harnesses both schools’ long-standing commitment to innovation in education.
“The David Eccles School of Business is excited to partner with the James E. Rogers College of Law to create a unique learning opportunity for our Eccles School students and to find systemic ways to address the justice gap in our nation,” said Taylor Randall, dean of the Eccles School of Business.
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“Expanding to include the business school at University of Utah is an incredible opportunity to amplify our work designing, building, and testing disruptive solutions to the justice gap," says i4J director Stacy Butler ('02). "Much of our work centers on leveraging potential changes in unauthorized practice of law to permit new types of legal services designed to meet the needs of those who cannot afford legal help under traditional models. Partnering with the University of Utah to become a cross-disciplinary lab with access to business school knowledge and resources will advance and elevate that work.” | |
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Advancing Access to Justice
i4J’s mission is to reach across silos to advance access to justice. The interdisciplinary community of i4J students, faculty, partners, and collaborators apply design- and systems-thinking methodologies to expose inequalities in the justice system and create new, replicable, and scalable strategies for legal empowerment.
i4J’s action-based research engages lived-experience experts and diverse stakeholders in the nonprofit, government, and private sectors to advance fair and equitable dispute resolution through systems-level change at both service and policy levels.
Current lab projects include the first pilot in the U.S. to train and license non-lawyers to provide limited-scope legal advice in the non-profit setting (advising domestic violence survivors in family law cases) and the first usability evaluation of online dispute resolution platform in the U.S.
i4J is also home to the Cost of Eviction Calculator, a free, online tool designed to help users estimate the community cost of some of the major downstream effects of eviction-related homelessness and promote systemic shifts toward eviction prevention.
Alongside Stacy, the i4J team includes:
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Sarah Mauet,
UX4Justice director
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Mackenzie S. Pish ('20),
lab manager
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Gabriela Elizondo-Craig ('21), post-graduate fellow
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Jessica D. Findley (JD ’06, PhD ’10), Licensed Legal Advocate Pilot Project manager | |
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Hon. Karen Adam (ret., ’76), Licensed Legal Advocate Pilot Project curriculum specialist
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Professor Christopher Griffin, empirical methods advisor | | |
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Cas Laskowski (Cracchiolo Law Library fellow and Maryland JD), legal research and technology advisor | |
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This year, the lab is initiating three new projects:
• Designing new initiatives at the intersection of regulatory reform and housing instability
• Creating a Medical Debt Policy Scorecard that inventories the medical debt policies in all 50 states and ranks states based on existing consumer protections
• Evaluating and redesigning the user experience (UX) of the Utah State Courts’ online self-help materials for defendants in debt collection
i4J students are eligible for the Snell & Wilmer John Bouma Leadership in Legal Innovation Fellowship. Fellows include Mackenzie Pish (Spring 2020), Nate Goodman (Fall 2020), Jacqueline Marzocca (Spring 2021), and Tate Richardson (Fall 2021).
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“Innovation for Justice reminded me of why I came to law school: everyone shares the same passion for change, excitement for innovation, and relentless pursuit to do better for the people who have needs that are largely unrepresented in the current legal system. I have been so inspired everyday by my instructors, teammates, and getting to work with members of the community who are dedicated to new and creative solutions. The design- and system-thinking framework that i4J utilizes is a method I will carry with me through practice because I’ve witnessed the progress that is possible through a thorough evaluation and understanding of a problem”
-- Jacqueline Marzocca ('21)
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Support i4J
The expansion to the Eccles School is made possible through contributions from University of Utah alumni Michael and Burgundy Caldwell-Waller, who bring their own unique knowledge of entrepreneurship, technology and law to this partnership.
i4J’s work is also made possible through the generous financial support of these sponsors:
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- Arizona Initiative for Public Service Law
- Bigglesworth Family Foundation
- Clio
- FHR Cares Community Investment Fund
- Neota Logic
- Nextrio
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- Pew Charitable Trusts
- Snell & Wilmer
- State Justice Institute
- University of Arizona Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice
- University of Arizona Experiential Learning Design Accelerator
- Utah Bar Foundation
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Homecoming & Reunion Weekend, November 4-6 | |
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Arizona Law’s 2021 Homecoming Celebration is scheduled for November 4-6, back on campus!
We are building an exciting schedule of events and activities to engage our Arizona Law community. There will be online virtual elements as well, so get registered, stay connected, and watch for additional events and details on the Arizona Law Homecoming website.
Reunions this year will be double the fun! We are making up for lost time by hosting two years' worth of reunions in one.
Join Arizona Law classmates and friends as we celebrate reunions for all classes ending in 0, 1, 5, or 6 during Homecoming Weekend 2021.
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Law Teaching Strategies for a New Era | |
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On July 22, the College of Law co-sponsored a very successful and well-attended conference on the forthcoming book Law Teaching Strategies for a New Era: Beyond the Physical Classroom.
Co-edited by professor Tessa Dysart, this is the first comprehensive book on online legal education. Its 34 chapters, authored by law professors from across the country, including Susie Salmon and Joy Herr-Cardillo ('84), provide a detailed and wide-ranging look at expanding legal education beyond the traditional classroom experience.
I appreciated the opportunity to provide short opening remarks for the conference, which featured a panel of practitioners and judges discussing the future of the legal practice. For more information on the conference and to watch videos from the panels, please visit the conference website.
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Bear Down Block Party, August 12-13 | |
Join the Bear Down Block Party Aug. 12-13 for a series of free virtual events! Learn more about alumni career and networking resources, hear from Wildcat leaders, meet other Wildcats from your area and win special prizes! | |
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The new term is on the horizon. The i4J partnership with the Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah embodies the very innovative spirit that drives so much at our college.
We are looking forward to a return to careful in-person engagement. But it is not just a return to what was. Throughout the last year and half we have continued to move forward on research and major initiatives like the i4J partnership with Utah. And we have continued our commitment to welcome, educate, support, and engage our students, across programs, as brilliantly as we can.
Warmly,
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