Ep 276: Reflections On 25 Years Of Innovation In Legal Aid, With The LSC’s Longtime Program Counsel Glenn Rawdon

Earlier this month, the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States, held its annual Innovations in Technology Conference in Phoenix. This year’s conference was particularly special for two reasons. For one, it was the conference’s 25th anniversary, as well as the 25th anniversary of the Technology Initiative Grants program that was the genesis of the conference. 

For another, this year’s conference followed the official retirement in November of Glenn Rawdon, the person who got the conference started in the first place and who oversaw it all these years. As program counsel at the LSC since 1999, it was Rawdon’s job to assist legal services programs with their technology efforts, manage the LSC’s technology grants, and make this conference happen every year. 

Rawdon is our guest this week, as he sits down with host Bob Ambrogi to share the origin story and evolution of the two groundbreaking LSC initiatives he helped launch and oversee — the TIG program and the ITC conference (long known as the TIG conference). 

From the conference’s humble beginnings as a gathering of 32 people in New Orleans in 2000, Rawdon explains how it grew into what many now consider the premier global event focused on technology and access to justice, this year drawing 700 attendees and 150 presenters from around the world. He also discusses how the TIG program, which started with a $7.5 million budget funding mainly website projects, evolved to support more sophisticated technology initiatives aimed at expanding access to legal services.

Drawing from his unique background as a solo practitioner who embraced technology in the 1980s to improve his own efficiency, Rawdon shares insights about the initially tentative but gradually expanding role of technology in legal aid organizations. He discusses key milestones like the development of document assembly tools, online intake systems, and statewide legal information websites — innovations that helped transform how legal aid is delivered.

 

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