Students must ‘re-imagine a system that provides justice for all,’ says BYU Law student and hackathon organizer
We spoke to George Simons, student at BYU Law — a Global Legal Hackathon host in Provo, Utah — about how students propel legal innovation
Law students at Brigham Young University have been busy tackling problems in Utah’s legal sector — namely, the state’s overwhelming number of debt collection cases. In their ongoing effort to develop innovative legal solutions and improve access to justice, BYU Law is hosting a legal hackathon event in Provo, UT, on February 22 through 24, as part of the Global Legal Hackathon, with support from Parsons Behle & Latimer and Patent Law Works.
We spoke to hackathon organizer and BYU law student George Simons about the upcoming event, the role that students play in legal innovation, and the university’s legal design lab — Law X Lab — which launched a free tool last month to help people in debt respond to debt collection lawsuits.
On a personal or professional level, why were you drawn to legal tech and legal design?
Before coming to law school, I worked in campaign politics. Data and technology were having a disruptive impact on elections and many campaign professionals saw their use as the deciding factor in winning or losing. When I came to law school, I saw many aspects of the legal industry were similarly ripe for disruption. The benevolence of the internet, which allows legal services to be provided at scale and for such a small cost, really appeals to me. I’m excited to collaborate with the enormous network of the Global Legal Hackathon and make stuff happen.
Last summer, I worked as a research fellow for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, focusing on international law and freedom of religion or belief. I’ll be interested to see what parties at the Hackathon come up with on this front.
Can you tell me a little bit about the Law X Lab and its objective to solve one problem related to access to justice each semester? Do you know what’s on the docket for next semester?
The BYU LawX Lab is the brainchild Dean Gordon Smith and Kimball Parker. I was lucky enough to be a student in the charter class and it was excellent working with Kimball and the other students — Kimball has a profound vision of what can be done in the legal tech space. Whatever he comes up with for next semester, I’m sure it will be disruptive.
Students at the Law X Lab recently developed a website — SoloSuit — to help Utah’s debtors deal with debt collectors and collections cases, as well as connect them with attorneys pro bono. What has been the feedback and impact so far?
Yes, that’s right: SoloSuit is a simple yet powerful tool that allows pro se defendants in debt collection cases to easily file answers. So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I think that might change once the debt collection professionals realize how much more powerful pro se defendants become when they have a little more help in their corner.
On its first day, SoloSuit was used to generate 68 debt collection answers. This was a promising start and LawX is now partnering with other organizations to make the SoloSuit technology more widespread and accessible. But there are still lots of hurdles pro se defendants face. One of those is an informal and unwritten rule in the Utah courts which requires pro se defendants to file documents by mail even though professional counsel can file their documents electronically. This applies to those defendants using SoloSuit as well. We’re hoping to see this change.
Are there specific problems in Utah’s justice system and/or legal industry you’d like to see addressed at the hackathon later this month?
We’re discussing with Sara Jones, Co-Founder of the Women in Tech Council, and the local Women in Law group to brainstorm ways to get more women involved in the Hackathon. We have teams preparing to tackle difficult issues like how to make filing a sexual harassment claim easier and how to make municipal law accessible and teams planning to make cool tech like business formation chatbots and Ethereum smart contract applications.
Why is it important for law schools and law students to be involved with hackathons?
Our Dean, Dean Gordon Smith, is putting a big emphasis on innovation and legal technology, and it’s truly an honor to be here at the same time as him. He’s helping students realize the importance of legal innovation and the changing environment of the legal field all while channeling into the law school some of the startup energy we have here in Provo.
Our local sponsors, Parsons Behle & Latimer and Patent Law Works have also been very helpful in making our participation in the hackathon possible.
One of the numbers that gets tossed around a lot is that 80 percent of the legal needs of low-income people go unmet. Not only is that a huge latent market, it’s also a huge social problem that needs to be solved.
In your view, how can universities help foster legal tech solutions to real-world problems? Is the onus on students, departments, or others to facilitate more entrepreneurial approaches to solving problems in the legal industry and justice systems?
Ultimately, the onus falls on the students. The world of tomorrow awaits and its creation is our obligation. If professors and universities or practitioners and law firms help us in our journey, excellent. But students can’t sit idly by waiting for opportunity and direction to be spoon fed to them; we must seize the day and re-imagine a system that provides justice for all. The mantle of entrepreneurship is upon each of us.
You can register for the Global Legal Hackathon in Provo, UT, through Cadence Events here and find out more about the BYU Law host location here.
