The Access Innovators: Legal Aid of North Carolina

Hey there Legal Rebels! 👋 I’m excited to share with you the 54th episode of the 2026 season of the LawDroid Manifesto podcast, where I will be continuing to interview key legal innovators to learn how they do what they do. I think you’re going to enjoy this one!

If you want to understand how AI can democratize access to justice through radical transparency and community-driven innovation, you need to listen to this episode. The team at Legal Aid of North Carolina is at the forefront of solving the access to justice gap with practical technology solutions that center people and equity in everything they do.

Building Trust Through Technology and Radical Transparency

Join me as I interview Scheree Gilchrist, Chief Innovation Officer, Megan Hennings, Program Manager and Staff Attorney for the Innovation Lab, and Helen Headrick, Chief Communications Officer, all from Legal Aid of North Carolina.

In this episode, the team shares how they’re tackling the massive access to justice gap affecting 92 percent of low-income families trying to address civil legal needs. They dive deep into their innovative approaches, including LIA, their AI-powered chatbot that provides 24/7 legal information in multiple languages. The conversation reveals how radical transparency, community engagement, and collaborative problem-solving are essential ingredients for building trust with communities that have historically been left out of the justice system.

Their stories and insights underscore the critical importance of putting people at the center of technology development, testing rigorously with real users, and approaching innovation as a village effort. This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in the intersection of law, technology, and social justice, offering valuable perspectives on how to implement AI responsibly in service of those who need legal help most.

The Skinny

The Legal Aid of North Carolina team tackles one of the most pressing challenges in American justice: the fact that 92 percent of low-income families facing civil legal needs cannot get help through the justice system. Scheree Gilchrist, Chief Innovation Officer, explains that the justice gap isn’t just about law: it’s about access, information, and trust. Many people don’t understand their legal rights, don’t know where to turn for help, and don’t trust institutions to support them. Through their Innovation Lab, the team has developed multiple solutions including LIA, an AI chatbot providing legal information in English and Spanish 24/7, an intake triage system that routes people to appropriate services, and other tools designed through extensive community testing. Helen Headrick emphasizes their commitment to radical transparency, making everything they create open source and freely available to other organizations. Megan Hennings describes their rigorous testing process involving real clients and attorneys to ensure tools genuinely serve user needs. The team’s collaborative approach involves legal experts, communications specialists, and technology partners working together to democratize access to justice, while remaining adaptable to rapidly evolving AI capabilities and maintaining ethical responsibility to stay current with technology changes.

Key Takeaways:

* The access to justice gap affects 92 percent of low-income families trying to address civil legal needs, representing a crisis of access, information, and trust

* Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Innovation Lab approaches technology development by centering people and equity in everything they create

* LIA, their AI-powered chatbot, provides 24/7 legal information in English and Spanish on every page of their website, making legal help accessible when offices are closed

* Radical transparency is core to their mission, everything they build is shared freely with other organizations through toolkits and documentation

* Their testing process involves real clients and attorneys providing feedback throughout development to ensure tools genuinely meet user needs

* The team emphasizes that solving the access to justice gap requires a village, collaboration between legal experts, communications specialists, community members, and technology partners

* They approach AI implementation with both excitement about its potential and caution about its limitations, always maintaining human oversight and clear disclaimers

* Building trust with communities that have been historically marginalized requires listening, transparency, and demonstrating that technology serves their needs

* The legal landscape is evolving rapidly with AI and e-court systems, creating an ethical responsibility for attorneys to stay current with technology

* Future success depends on democratizing legal knowledge rather than gatekeeping it, making conflict resolution accessible to everyone who needs it

Notable Quotes:

* “The justice gap is really not just about the law. It’s about access, information and trust. LSC puts out a justice gap report and it tells you that 92 percent of low income families that are trying to address civil legal needs, those needs go unmet through the justice system.” - Scheree Gilchrist (04:02-04:28)

* “What the numbers show is that people are left out of the system. They don’t have access to the courts. They don’t have the information they need to arm themselves. They’re not empowered and they don’t trust the institutions to provide information for their legal needs as well.” - Scheree Gilchrist (04:34-04:53)

* “Think about a parent, two kids who is now facing an eviction and they get a notice from their landlord that they have to go to court. Most people don’t understand what their legal rights are. They don’t understand when they have a legal right.” - Scheree Gilchrist (06:10-06:32)

* “It takes a village to solve these problems. When we say innovation or we’re in an innovation lab, we don’t mean one person doing one thing. We mean a bunch of people collaborating, bringing ideas to the table, brainstorming, trying something, testing it, figuring out what works, what doesn’t work.” - Megan Hennings (10:44-11:00)

* “We really value like radical transparency. And I say radical transparency meaning we kind of put it all out there. We share things probably faster than maybe other people have in the past, partly because, you know, if we’re going to build trust, then we have to show that we’re doing that.” - Helen Hedrick (12:37-12:53)

* “People are already going to seek out legal help using AI. Our clients are already doing this. And so we want to demystify that, educate them on that, and provide them with a safe place to do that if they’re going to do it anyway.” - Scheree Gilchrist (14:44-14:59)

* “We worked with actual clients at Legal Aid of North Carolina. So they came to our office and sat in a room with all of us, like developer, the communications team, myself, and we watched as they actually chatted with LIA, asked their questions, tested her out.” - Megan Hennings (18:43-18:59)

* “LIA is available 24/7 in English and Spanish on every page of our website. So no matter what page you’re on, if you’re looking for a domestic violence restraining order, if you’re looking for an eviction answer, if you’re looking for the application for our services, LIA’s there.” - Megan Hennings (20:10-20:25)

* “We have LIA on there. We have explanations of the warnings, the benefits, the limitations. We have FAQs, which include videos of me talking about it. We have a place where, you know, if they want to try LIA out, she’s actually on the page.” - Helen Hedrick (22:04-22:19)

* “The theme here is trust, right? Like it all goes back to trust. Like you said, we’re trying to build trust with a community that largely has not been served well by institutions like the justice system.” - Helen Hedrick (25:54-26:07)

* “Our clients are out there. They’re going to go to the source of help that they have. And if that’s ChatGPT at 3 a.m. when they have a crisis going on and our office is closed, that’s what they’re going to do.” - Scheree Gilchrist (40:08-40:21)

* “I think we’re long past the time where we can pretend like the legal field is not going to be impacted or it’s going to remain the same. Right now it’s staying abreast, learning what the best practices are and learning what the new models are.” - Scheree Gilchrist (40:52-41:08)

* “For me, it’s really like it’s democratizing the law. It’s not gatekeeping everyday access to resolving conflict, which the law is our court system is at the end of the day. In that spirit, we try to make everything that we do democratized and shared.” - Megan Hennings (43:07-43:24)

Clips

Eviction Misunderstandings Costs Lives

Marrying Tech with Human Touch

The Legal Field Is Rapidly Changing

Information Prevents Legal Emergencies

The Legal Aid of North Carolina team exemplifies what it means to innovate with purpose. Their work demonstrates that effective legal technology isn’t just about sophisticated AI models or sleek interfaces, it’s about understanding the real barriers people face and designing solutions that genuinely serve them. By involving clients directly in the testing process, maintaining radical transparency about both capabilities and limitations, and sharing everything they create with other organizations, they’re building a model for responsible AI implementation that other legal services organizations can follow.

What makes their approach particularly powerful is the recognition that technology alone won’t solve the access to justice gap. It requires collaboration across disciplines, deep community engagement, and a commitment to building trust with populations that have historically been marginalized by traditional legal institutions. Their willingness to share their work openly, including both successes and lessons learned, accelerates progress across the entire legal aid community.

Closing Thoughts

As someone who’s spent years working to democratize access to justice through technology, I find the Legal Aid of North Carolina team’s approach both inspiring and instructive. What strikes me most is their unwavering commitment to putting people first, not as an abstract principle, but as a concrete practice embedded in every stage of their work.

The team’s emphasis on radical transparency resonates deeply with me. In an era where AI can seem like a black box, their decision to openly share not just their tools but their entire process, including the challenges and limitations, builds exactly the kind of trust that’s essential for serving vulnerable communities. They’re not just building technology; they’re building relationships.

I’m particularly excited by their recognition that solving the access to justice gap requires a village. Legal aid organizations don’t need to reinvent the wheel individually. By sharing toolkits, documentation, and lessons learned, Legal Aid of North Carolina is helping create a rising tide that lifts all boats. This collaborative spirit is exactly what our profession needs more of.

The work they’re doing with LIA demonstrates how AI can extend the reach of legal services without replacing human judgment. Available 24/7 in multiple languages, providing information when offices are closed and people are in crisis; this is practical, people-centered innovation that addresses real needs. And by maintaining clear disclaimers, human oversight, and pathways to actual legal assistance, they’re implementing AI responsibly.

For our Legal Rebels community, the Legal Aid of North Carolina team offers a blueprint for how to approach legal technology innovation: start with deep empathy for the people you serve, involve them throughout the development process, maintain transparency about capabilities and limitations, share what you learn with others, and never lose sight of the fact that technology is a means to justice, not an end in itself.

As AI continues to evolve at an exponential pace, organizations like Legal Aid of North Carolina that combine technological capability with deep community trust will be best positioned to close the access to justice gap. The future they’re building? where legal knowledge is democratized rather than gatekept, is one worth fighting for. And they’re proving that with the right approach, that future is already becoming reality.

Support LANC

If you’d like to support Legal Aid of North Carolina and their efforts in closing the access to justice gap, donate! Support: legalaidnc.org/donate

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