Monday Musings: Collaborating for Impact – Scaling Justice Tech
If you’ve ever asked yourself how we can realistically scale access to civil legal help for the millions left behind—this one’s for you.
The Scaling Justice series by the Thomson Reuters Institute dives deep into the rapidly evolving justice tech ecosystem. But it’s not just about tools and platforms—it’s about people. Specifically, it’s about bridging the cultural divide between tech innovators and the legal aid organizations that have been serving communities for decades.
One standout piece in the series, “Collaborating for impact — 5 essential tips for justice tech providers” by Kelli Raker and Maya Markovich, offers a field guide for doing this work well. With deep experience in justice innovation, the authors lay out what it takes to build meaningful partnerships that truly move the needle on justice access.
Today, I’m unpacking their five tips—and why they matter now more than ever.
🌱 1. Shared Mission, Different Worlds
At first glance, legal service organizations (LSOs) and justice tech startups seem like a natural fit. Both want to close the access to justice gap. But the road to collaboration is rarely smooth.
LSOs are mission-driven nonprofits with deep community roots, long-standing court relationships, and complex client needs. Justice tech companies, on the other hand, are often lean, agile, and laser-focused on scalable solutions.
This disconnect can cause missed opportunities—unless both sides come to the table with openness and clarity.
💡 2. Align on Values First
Raker and Markovich emphasize the importance of starting with a shared commitment to equity and community impact. This isn’t just a handshake agreement. It means intentionally anchoring collaboration around core values like respect, accessibility, and sustainability.
Without this alignment, even the most promising tech will fall flat.
🤝 3. Respect Each Other’s Expertise
Justice tech providers bring iterative design, user research, and technical know-how. LSOs bring unparalleled insight into legal systems and the lived realities of clients navigating them.
Each party has deep expertise that the other lacks—and that’s the point. Great partnerships flourish when each side sees the other as essential, not optional.
As Raker puts it: “The lived experience of legal aid clients should drive tech design. But so should the insights of the legal advocates who’ve been doing this work for decades.”
🔄 4. Build Feedback Loops and Co-Create Solutions
A recurring theme in the Scaling Justice collection is that technology doesn’t scale justice—people do. And the best tools are those built with, not for, the communities they serve.
Raker and Markovich suggest creating structured ways to co-develop and refine tools in real time—with input from both front-line legal staff and the clients themselves. This isn’t a “pilot once and hope for the best” approach. It’s about continuous iteration, honest dialogue, and long-term collaboration.
📣 5. Prioritize Trust and Communication
Justice tech can’t just drop in with a new app and expect impact. Building trust—especially in under-resourced, overburdened legal environments—takes time and care.
Whether it’s clarifying timelines, setting realistic expectations, or acknowledging past tech fumbles, transparent communication is key. It’s what allows partnerships to grow beyond transactional projects and into movements for change.
🛠️ Scaling Justice Requires All of Us
The Scaling Justice series is full of powerful case studies and forward-thinking ideas—from AI-powered ADR to new regulatory frameworks supporting non-lawyer advocates.
But at the heart of it all is a reminder: scaling justice isn’t just about the what. It’s about the how.
The “how” means centering relationships, co-creation, and values. It means building systems where the wisdom of LSOs and the tools of justice tech converge—not compete.
As someone grounded in both legal practice and innovation, I’m energized by the possibilities this kind of collaboration holds. And I’m hopeful that with models like the ones shared in this series, we can reimagine what access to justice looks like in real time, for real people.
👉 Curious to learn more?
Explore the full Scaling Justice series and read Kelli Raker’s full article here.
Let’s build systems worthy of the communities we serve.