Episode 91: The Innovation4Justice Lab – Creating change through legal education and multidisciplinary collaboration

We often think about legal innovation and legal education as being separate and distinct but, what if they weren’t? What if students, not just law students, could pursue their passion for change in a way that led to more people, in more places, having access to justice?

That’s the question that the Innovation4Justice (I4J) Lab asked and is answering today.

Our guest for this podcast is Stacy Butler, the Director of the I4J Program. Stacy has a deep history in community advocacy and expanding the reach of civil legal services for under-represented populations. It’s that experience, her passion and drive, that led to the establishment of the I4J Lab and, is evident in all the amazing I4J Lab team members and those with whom they collaborate too. The I4J Lab is a multidisciplinary collaboration between the University of Arizona, the University of Utah, staff, students, the legal ecosystem, many other industries, and communities.

It focuses on creating tools that provide empirical data where that’s been missing in policy formation/deployment and, solutions that enhance access to justice through user centred design and implementation. The I4J Lab is producing outcomes that make a difference. It’s also creating frameworks, models and adopting different ways to solve complex problems in a holistic way. Because the work is also scalable, it has practical application for the entire legal system and marketplace.

There are elements of this work that are familiar but, there are many others that are new, and some would not have even been possible until quite recently.

Thanks soooo much for the outstanding work you and the team at the I4J Lab are doing, Stacy – walking the talk and making a difference – it doesn’t get much better than that!