What was the Legal Access Challenge?
The Legal Access Challenge called for legal tech start-ups, law firms, alternative legal providers, advice organisations and law schools to develop ambitious direct-to-user products, services and platforms. Its aim was to make legal services more accessible and affordable for individuals, families and small businesses. Delivered by Nesta Challenges in partnership with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, it awarded £50,000 grants to eight finalists along with an expert support programme to develop their solutions, with two winners receiving an additional £50,000.
Why did we do this?
In many sectors digital technology has made life easier for customers, giving them more choice and control. In legal services though, technology has made less of an impact. The Challenge had three aims:
- Accelerating the development of products, services and platforms that will help individuals and SMEs understand and resolve their legal problems with greater ease
- Developing a community with a shared interest in using technology to improve access to legal support
- Learning whether there are regulatory barriers to the development and adoption of mass market legal technology solutions and, if so, what adaptations to the SRA’s approach might reduce these barriers
What happened?
- Each finalist had until April 2020 to develop their solution
- Two of the most promising finalists were then awarded additional £50,000 prizes to bring their solutions to market
Impact of the Challenge
- 7 out of 8 finalists agreed that the Challenge accelerated development of their solution, with 5 of 8 strongly agreeing
- 5 out of 8 finalists agreed that the Challenge allowed them to experiment with new functionality that they would not have otherwise pursued
- 6 out of 8 finalists agreed that the Challenge provided them with support that they would have not been able to access otherwise
- 6 out of 8 finalists agreed that the Challenge helped them to clarify the objectives of their solution
- The Challenge secured 80 pieces of media coverage, reaching a print circulation of 899,000 and online readership of 26.8m, including in national broadsheets The Times and The Sunday Times
- 7 out of 8 finalists agreed that they were introduced to new and useful contacts throughout the Challenge
- 5 out of 8 finalists have built new partnerships as a result of the Challenge
The winners of the Legal Access Challenge
CourtNav and FLOWS by RCJ Advice and Rights of Women
Support to help domestic abuse survivors through innovative platforms that effectively integrate technology with human advice and support. CourtNav collects evidence for a non-molestation order application and links female and male survivors in England and Wales with an accredited domestic abuse legal aid solicitor. A referral app for frontline workers (such as police officers or refuge staff) refers people at risk to the legal help they need. Meanwhile, FLOWS (Finding Legal Options for Women Survivors) specifically empowers women survivors to easily find clear information and local legal support as well as offering a secure webchat app that women can use quickly and discreetly. The FLOWS Discussion Forum also enables practitioners to share advice with peers via a secure platform.
The Chatbot, developed by Mencap and Access Social Care
A legal information service for the hundreds of thousands with social care needs, the chatbot uses IBM Watson technology to provide free, accessible legal information, particularly for those who are experiencing challenges accessing care. The chatbot enables Access and Mencap to more effectively meet demand for advice by using technology to complement the human expertise of their advisors. Using artificial intelligence, it learns from interactions as people use it, including legal caseworkers and care managers who have been involved in the testing. It helps people understand their rights and access justice, as well as allowing lawyers and advisers to allocate more time to the most complex cases. The chatbot can also be hosted on the websites of other advice organisations to reach even more people.
Learn more about the impact of the Challenge by reading this report
Finalists
The team
Nicola Tulk
Programme Manager
Chris Gorst
Director in Nesta Challenges
Piotr Gierszewski
Senior Researcher
Nicola Tulk
Programme Manager
Pronouns: She/Her
Nicola is Programme Manager of The Legal Access Challenge, a challenge prize delivered by Nesta in partnership with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Legal Access Challenge is seeking digital technology solutions which directly help people to better understand and resolve their legal problems.
Before joining Nesta, Nicola spent ten years as a consultant at global advisory firm Willis Towers Watson working with a broad range of FTSE 100 clients and smaller insurers across the UK and Europe, specialising in personal lines insurance. She qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 2012.
Nicola is a Fellow of the On Purpose Associate Programme, a one year leadership programme for experienced professionals facilitating transition into careers within purpose driven businesses. During this programme Nicola defined and implemented strategy for the Commercial team at community interest company Mental Health First Aid England and led the research and design phase for the Legal Access Challenge.
Outside of work, Nicola loves to travel and to walk/run/occasionally climb outdoors.
Chris Gorst
Director in Nesta Challenges
Chris’s experience spans the public, commercial and social impact sectors and interactions between the three. He started his career in supply side policy and public finance at HM Treasury. In the commercial sector he has worked as a strategy consultant and in investment banking. In social impact, he has delivered a major capacity-building programme for UK small business leaders and developed impact measurement strategies for a wide range of non-profits.
In his spare time Chris is a keen (but green) Python coder. He is a volunteer mentor for the Year Here programme, which encourages talented graduates to develop innovative solutions to entrenched social challenges.
Piotr Gierszewski
Senior Researcher
Pronouns: He/Him
Piotrek is passionate about using foresight as a tool for achieving social impact; exploring possible visions for the future, anticipating obstacles and enabling the desirable opportunities to happen. He has over ten years’ experience in research within academia, private and non-profit sectors.
At Nesta Challenges, he is responsible for researching social and environmental problems and identifying opportunities to tackle them. He turns insight into practice by developing challenge-driven, open-innovation competitions that support communities of solvers and incentivise solutions to these problems. Since 2017, Piotrek has worked on topics ranging from emerging innovations in whale conservation or legal services to scaling up access to surgical procedures in low resource settings.
Prior to joining Nesta, Piotrek had worked at a boutique science commercialisation consultancy as a technology scout and at the University of Cambridge as a life scientist specialising in epigenetics and molecular biology. He also co-lead a few grassroots networks focused on translation of ‘deep’ and/or ‘bench’ science into commercial opportunities and acceleration of their market entry.
Piotrek is a fire performer specialising in ‘poi’ spinning and fire breathing (though less so since he grew a beard), loves nature and spending time outdoors.