How can technology be used to improve our justice system? Georgetown’s Judicial Innovation Fellowship will find out

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This is a guest post by Ashwin Ramaswami, a technologist, Fritz Family Fellow, and JD candidate at Georgetown University Law Center.

Every year, tens of millions of Americans come into contact with the justice system. For criminal or civil matters, such as evictions, most people face procedures that are inefficient, unclear and difficult to use, particularly for those without access to a lawyer. In the background, courts are trying to do better, but decades of budget constraints from legislatures, operational problems, and private technology vendors with no eye for usability advancements.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Imagine a future where anyone, even without access to an attorney, has access to technology to help them solve some of their most existential problems, including eviction issues, debt, domestic violence, healthcare, and their own freedom. Where people can use interfaces designed with their experience in mind and contain instructions and steps in plain language, not just English. Where courts collect robust and actionable data knowing which trials are fair and which need attention. Where people don’t have to take time off work and childcare to attend simple court hearings or get updates, but instead can attend court and receive notifications virtually.

With the Judicial Innovation Fellowship (JIF), we are helping courts build a modern, fair and open vision of justice for all. And we need your help to do that.

JIF is an interdisciplinary program hosted at Georgetown University that places technologists, designers, product managers, and cybersecurity experts, among other tech workers, in state, local, tribal, and territory courts to improve public access to justice. Drawing inspiration from other successful govtech fellowships, our fellows will be a very welcome infusion of talent and expertise, working as consultants and practitioners in their host courts.

JIF is especially needed because we have a national justice crisis. Ninety-two percent of low-income individuals facing a civil legal issue receive inadequate or no legal assistance. This is a problem increasingly experienced by the middle class and exacerbated by economic, racial and gender disparities. Meanwhile, in the criminal justice system, an average of 630,000 people are in pre-trial detention each day – a population we know very little about because data collection is poor.

(Courtesy image)

Justice technology projects have demonstrated the potential to play a crucial role in improving justice, from open data systems that increase transparency to automated hearing date notifications to public-facing tools, such as online dispute resolution. But it’s not as simple as making a killer app. With people’s rights and livelihoods hanging in the balance, any technological innovation in the justice system must be thoughtful, context sensitive, and ultimately empower both processes and people. With JIF, we hope to pursue this goal: technology should put people first, not the other way around.

With a competitive salary and benefits, the fellows will work in a courtroom on a justice technology project designed to improve public access to justice for one year. Fellows will receive immersive justice system education, build a professional network in public interest technology, and connect with career opportunities in the growing justice technology industry. We are looking for candidates who are collaborative, committed to public service and who are comfortable applying their technical expertise to new environments. We are also seeking participants from diverse backgrounds, including those previously incarcerated, so the courts do better with the people they serve.

We are thrilled to launch this initiative. If you want to help make our justice system fairer, more transparent and more efficient, please visit our website to sign up for our Fellow Information Session on February 28. Applications will open on the same day. You can also ask us questions via our GitHub repository. Successful candidates will begin their placement in September 2023.

Ultimately, being a Judicial Innovation Fellow is a dynamic and unique opportunity to create new replicable projects and seed cultural change within judiciaries, making them more responsive to the needs of court patrons. While technology will never be a panacea, it can help make progress toward a more just country if developed and used carefully, empowering those individuals and communities who need it most.

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