Talk Justice An LSC Podcast

Kellye Testy, the executive director and CEO of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), joins Talk Justice. AALS is a non-profit membership organization, to which 174 law schools belong. Testy spoke to Cat Moon about opportunities for students to contribute to access to justice, the need to integrate evolving technologies into legal education, and degree programs that offer more flexible paths to becoming a lawyer.

American Bar Association (ABA) President Michelle Behnke appears on Talk Justice to discuss America’s 250th anniversary, legal deserts, artificial intelligence (AI), promoting civics awareness among the general public, and building support for civil legal services.

Equal Justice Works CEO Verna Williams discusses her prior experience as a law dean, her work engaging law students and young lawyers in public interest and the inspiration she draws from their passion. As the nation’s largest post-graduate legal fellowship program, Equal Justice Works deploys students and lawyers to legal services organizations across the country. Since its founding in 1986, Equal Justice Works has supported more than 2,700 fellows.

The leader of the Colorado Access to Justice Commission discusses their “Listening Tour” initiative on the latest episode of Talk Justice. Elisa Overall shares about the wide-reaching 22-stop tour and its findings, which were published in a December 2025 report.

Chief Justice Steven R. Jensen appears on Talk Justice with LSC President Ron Flagg. They speak about his path to South Dakota’s Supreme Court, the national Conference of Chief Justices, efforts to promote public interest law, access to justice initiatives and the challenges facing state courts. Jensen, who is currently serving his second term as chief justice, was first appointed to the South Dakota Supreme Court in 2017.

Guests discuss hot topics expected at the upcoming 26th Innovations in Technology Conference (ITC) and findings from a new justice tech report. Themes of navigating the changing tech landscape, expanding self-help resources, innovating with artificial intelligence (AI) and knowledge-sharing between organizations emerged in the guests’ discussion of ITC and the report, “The Next Frontier: Harnessing Technology to Close the Justice Gap.” 

Leaders from faith organizations and mission-driven nonprofits discuss the connections between faith communities and legal services on Talk Justice. For many, faith provides guiding principles, like the instruction to help those in need. The Salvation Army recently launched their Faith and Community Based Organizations’ Disaster Training. LSC developed a Faith Community Outreach Toolkit to help faith leaders understand the role of legal services.

Innovative programs that leverage unlicensed practice of law reform to create new pathways to justice for domestic violence (DV) survivors are featured in this episode of Talk Justice. Community Justice Advocates of Utah manages the Certified Advocate Partner Program, which trains Victim Advocates at organizations throughout Utah to provide limited-scope legal help to DV survivors as they pursue civil protective orders or civil stalking injunctions. In Arizona, Innovation for Justice partners with community-based organizations to train, support and mentor domestic violence legal advocates. Since 2021, the Domestic Violence Legal Advocate Program has trained trauma-informed legal advocates at DV service providers to deliver limited-scope legal help on protective orders and certain family law matters.

A recent report from LSC's Rural Justice Task Force, “Justice Where We Live: Promising Practices from Rural Communities,” dives into a multitude of programs and approaches that address the biggest challenges to accessing civil justice in rural America. One issue is the scarcity of attorneys in rural areas, often called “legal deserts.” This episode highlights three programs working to create a pipeline of new rural lawyers.

Legal technologists discuss a recent survey that found that legal aid attorneys are adopting AI at a faster rate than other legal professionals on Talk Justice. In May of 2025, Everlaw partnered with the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, Paladin and LawSites to conduct a survey of 112 legal aid professionals. The survey formed the basis of the report, “The AI Advantage: How Technology Can Help Bridge the Justice Gap,” which was published in September. It found that 74% of the legal aid organizations surveyed are already using AI in their work, which is double the generative AI adoption rate of the wider legal profession.