Month: April 2025

Technology 

• A New York City Bar Association podcast explores the partnership between Microsoft and the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project to streamline and scale the DACA renewal process for Dreamers. [4/17/25] 
• RAILS (Responsible AI in Legal Services) at Duke Law has compiled a table of resources on access to justice, tech innovation, and regulation. [4/14/25]
• A self-represented litigant deployed an AI avatar in a prerecorded video presentation before an appellate panel of New York State judges, the New York Times reports. Fortune also reports. [4/4/25]  An article in Business Insider (paywall) reports on the fallout. [4/11/25]
• An article in Forbes covers the Stanford CodeX and DLA Piper Law Track Conference of the UN AI For Good global platform. [4/10/25]
• The Georgetown University Law Center’s Global Perspectives on AI and the Law talks are now live. [3/19/25]

Regulatory Innovation 

• California Assembly Bill 931 on consumer legal funding has moved out of the Assembly and been referred to committee in the Senate. [4/21/25]
• The UPL lawsuit against LegalZoom is heading to arbitration, Law360 reports. [4/17/25]
• An article by Joanna Goodman in the Law Society Gazette discusses ongoing conversations about legal regulation and legal culture in response to the Post Office scandal and other high-profile incidents involving lawyers. [4/11/25]  
• An ABA Journal article covers a discussion at ABA Midyear on regulatory innovation and the efforts undertaken in Arizona. [4/10/25]
• Law360 reports (paywall) that KPMG and Google Cloud are partnering to co-develop offerings for AI-assisted contract review, research, and document analysis for KPMG Law US, operating as an alternative business structure in Arizona. [4/9/25]  

Courts, Rules & Access to Justice 

• The Texas House of Representatives Family & Fiduciary Relationships Subcommittee is considering HB 3819 that would require probate courts to allow parties to appear remotely for hearings in uncontested cases. [4/22/25]
• A New York Times Magazine article explores the human face of unrepresented litigation. [4/17/25]
• A recap and the recording of Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession’s conference “Inequality, Access to Justice, and the Rule of Law” is now available. Rhode Center Co-Director David Freeman Engstrom leads a panel discussion on The Future of Access to Justice. [4/11/25]
• Bob Ambrogi covers the recent release of the Stanford and LA Superior Court project report, on LawSites. [4/10/25]
• The National Center for State Courts has released a Tiny Chat on Referrals. 
• Rhode Center Co-Director Nora Freeman Engstrom appears on Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything Podcast to discuss the civil justice gap. [4/4/25]
• A new project has launched that is exploring how a range of funding models might be deployed to support the work of U.K. organizations providing free legal advice; the research is a collaboration between the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, the Access to Justice Foundation, and the University of Surrey. [4/1/25]

The Profession

• Researchers from the Australian National University and University of Melbourne published findings from a survey on lawyer wellbeing, workplace incivility, and ethics. [4/16/25]

Technology

• Stanford HAI’s 2025 AI Index Report is out. [4/7/25]
• Joe Patrice in Above the Law reports on an ABA TECHSHOW session exploring the role of AI as a way to bridge the access to justice gap. [4/3/25]
• Writing in The Times, Richard Susskind explores whether AI could replace traditional lawyers (and do so by 2035). [3/27/25]
• In what the ABA Journal reports is an “‘extremely rare’ move,” law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has acquired legal technology company Springbok AI. [3/18/25]
• The American Bar Association released the 2024 Legal Technology Survey Report, the ABA Journal reports. [3/4/25]

Regulatory Innovation

• Jonathan Adler writes in The Volokh Conspiracy about a new study on the effects of occupational licensing on the legal profession. [3/26/25]
• Crispin Passmore appears on The Future Is Bright Podcast discussing alternative business structures. [3/25/25]
• Michael Houlberg, of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, appears on the Paralegal Boot Camp podcast, discussing regulatory innovation. [3/22/25]
• California Assembly Bill 931 seeks to prohibit lawyers from sharing fees with out-of-state, nonlawyer-owned alternative business structures. [2/19/25]

Courts, Rules & Access to Justice 

• Stanford Law School’s Rhode Center and Legal Design Lab, in partnership with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, have published a diagnostic report that outlines a blueprint for creating more innovative, modern, and accessible courts. Read more about the effort and sign up for an upcoming webinar to engage in a discussion about the research and the report. [4/3/25]
• The American Arbitration Association® launched new Consumer Mediation Procedures which are designed for lower-value consumer disputes. [3/31/25] 
• The National Center for State Courts released a new report–”Preserving the Future of Juries and Jury Trials”–that discusses the challenges of declining juror participation and jury trials and offers strategic solutions. [3/26/25]

The Profession

• 363 law professors submitted an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie. ABA Journal also reports. [4/8/25]
• The National Center for State Courts reports on the National Convening on the Future of Legal Education, hosted by the CCJ/COSCA Committee on Legal Education and Admissions Reform (CLEAR). [3/19/25]
• Sara Randazzo of the Wall Street Journal writes about the highly competitive law school admissions year. [3/15/25]