How can tech be used to improve our justice system? Georgetown’s Judicial Innovation Fellowship will find out

Every year, tens of millions of Americans come in contact with the court system. For criminal or civil issues, like evictions, most people are met with inefficient, unclear, and difficult-to-use processes, particularly for those without access to a lawyer. In the background, courts are trying to do better, but decades of thin budgets from legislatures, operational hangups, and private technology vendors lacking an eye for usability hamstring progress.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Imagine a future in which anyone — even with no access to a lawyer — has access to technology to help them solve some of their most existential problems, including issues with eviction, debt, domestic violence, health care, and their very freedom. Where people can use interfaces that are designed with their experience in mind and contain instructions and steps in plain language — and not just in English. Where courts collect robust, usable data knowing which processes are equitable and which need attention. Where people do not have to take time off work and childcare in order to attend simple court hearings or receive updates, but can attend court and receive notifications virtually instead.

With the Judicial Innovation Fellowship (JIF), we’re helping courts build a modern, equitable, and open vision of justice for all. And we need your help to do it.

JIF is an interdisciplinary program housed at Georgetown University that places technologists, designers, product managers, and cybersecurity experts, among other tech workers, in state, local, tribal, and territorial courts to improve the public’s access to justice. Taking inspiration from other successful govtech fellowships, our fellows will be a much welcomed infusion of talent and expertise, working as advisors and practitioners in their host courts.

JIF is especially needed because we have a national justice crisis. Ninety-two percent of low-income individuals facing a civil legal problem receive inadequate or no legal help. This is a problem increasingly experienced by the middle class and exacerbated by economic, racial, and gender disparities. Meanwhile, in the criminal justice system, an average of 630,000 people sit in pretrial detention every day: a population we know very little about, because data collection is poor.

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Justice technology projects have demonstrated the potential to play a crucial role in improving justice, from open data systems that increase transparency to automated hearing date notifications to public-facing tools, like online dispute resolution. But it’s not as simple as building a killer app. With people’s rights and livelihoods in the balance, any technological innovation in the court system must be thoughtful, sensitive to context, and ultimately empower both processes and people. With JIF, we hope to pursue that goal: Technology should center people first, not the other way around.

With a competitive salary and benefits, fellows will work in a court on a court technology project designed to improve the public’s access to justice for one year. Fellows will receive immersive training about the justice system, build a professional network in public interest technology, and connect with career opportunities in the growing justice tech sector. We are looking for applicants who are collaborative, committed to public service, and comfortable applying their technical expertise to new environments. We are also looking for participants from diverse backgrounds, including the previously incarcerated, so that courts do better by the people they serve.

We are excited to launch this initiative. If you want to help make our justice system more equitable, transparent, and efficient, visit our website to sign up for our Fellows Information Session on Feb. 28. Applications will open the same day. You can also ask us questions through our GitHub repo. Successful applicants will start their placement in September 2023.

Ultimately, being a Judicial Innovation Fellow is a dynamic and unique opportunity to create new, replicable projects and seed culture change within judiciaries, making them more responsive to court patrons’ needs. While technology will never be a panacea, it can help make progress toward a more just country if developed and deployed thoughtfully, empowering those individuals and communities that need it most.