Environmental concerns come up often when I talk with public interest lawyers about AI. In this article, I gather research on energy and water use, distinguish individual use from the effects of large data centers, and consider the importance of where those facilities are built. The goal is to give legal aid attorneys and advocates […]
Blog
No devil at this crossroads: the moral case for using AI to help close the access to justice gap
How should legal aid decide whether an AI tool is safe enough to help people? I propose a “crossroads test”: evaluate performance, failures, and bias, then compare the tool with realistic alternatives, including a trained human, a rules-based system, ChatGPT, or no help at all. The essay explores practical access-to-justice uses, takes common objections seriously, […]
My resolution: a year of AI maximalism for access to justice
Last month, I was in Turin, Italy to present a paper about Lemma Legal’s work on legal intake, covering a tool we built to help Virginia Legal Aid Society, Louisiana’s statewide legal help navigator, and Oregon State Bar’s Lawyer Referral Service. I also helped run a workshop on AI and Access to Justice. (By the […]
Bold exploration and a new normal for AI in access to justice at the 5th AI for Access to Justice workshop
At the fifth AI for Access to Justice workshop, held alongside JURIX in Turin, researchers explored increasingly practical uses of AI for legal help. I highlight work on consumer debt cases, voice-based services in Niger, bias in parenting-rights recommendations, and agents that navigate legal websites. The recap also considers the risks of inaccurate or biased […]
Making editing Docassemble more user-friendly with AI
Lemma owner Quinten Steenhuis recently wrote about a project to make it easier to edit Docassemble interviews in a guided, graphical process, without the tradeoffs of tools like Gavel, AfterPattern, ClioDraft, and similar tools. Highlights: In this post, Quinten introduces the next generation of Weaver — a new visual editor for Docassemble that blends no-code […]
Announcing WorkflowDocs
Lemma’s new WorkflowDocs product brings together the power of LegalServer’s case management data, Docassemble, and four core features for one low, monthly price:
Endpoint Security with Twilio & FastAPI: Securing webhooks and WebSockets
We’re building a phone-intake AI voice bot that is connected for Virginia Legal Aid Society (VLAS) with Twilio, Pipecat, and FastAPI (Github). Without proper safeguards, this system could be exploited by attackers who go after our backend directly. That opens the door to unauthorized traffic, inflated usage costs, and degraded service quality for our users. […]
How to write an academic paper in AI and Law
You don’t need a traditional academic background to contribute useful research on AI and law. Drawing on my experience as a legal aid attorney and practitioner, I explain how to turn a practical project into a paper for conferences such as ICAIL and JURIX. The guide covers research questions, literature reviews, datasets, evaluation metrics, and […]
Sendgrid’s free tier disappears; New email options to consider
If you’re looking for a free way to add email sending capability to your Docassemble interviews, Sendgrid is no longer a good choice. Consider switching to one of the newer options listed below. For those with a relatively low email volume, Sendgrid has long offered a moderate free tier of 100 emails/day. For those with […]
Drowning in low-hanging fruit: AI enables access to justice solutions
The AI for Access to Justice workshop at ICAIL 2025 brought together researchers and practitioners exploring tools for legal aid and self-represented litigants. I recap projects involving legal chatbots, document automation, clearer legal communication, and support for people navigating appeals. The article also looks at testing, participatory design, and the range of approaches represented at […]