This article was originally published on Law360 on April 7, 2017
Technology is swiftly changing how people engage in legal action. In late January 2017, Twitter went mad with support for the ACLU’s fight against the executive order refusing people entry to the United States from seven Muslim countries. In the midst of all that, we staged our U.S. launch of CrowdJustice, a platform facilitating access to the legal system through crowdfunding. Around the same time, a commercial app to help people navigate the immigration system gave refugees free access to the tool.
Digital communities play an increasingly dominant role in our social and political culture. Accessing and sharing information online is becoming second nature. And we’re seeing the legal landscape follow many of the broader trends we take for granted in the nonlegal space. Crowdfunding legal cases is giving individuals and groups a model to seek the resources they need to take on deeper-pocketed opponents by tapping into the power of the crowd.
While technology is often used to describe possible futures, organizations can use tech right now to bring a more personal approach to our legal system. Crowdfunding legal cases sits directly at the intersection of a focused social network and a platform driving support for the most human of issues from the most earnest of supporters. Below is an examination of trends that, in combination, point to crowdfunding for legal cases as a driving force in the near term evolution of the legal system itself.
1. Social media is how we access news — and share stories.
According to the Pew Research Center, 62 percent of adults get their news through social media. Legal cases, usually inaccessible to most Americans except attorneys or via pop culture court cases, almost always involve an element of news or human interest and appear to be attracting an increasing share of overall content consumed through social media. Bringing law to the crowd via social media is likely to see a continued shift in engagement, driven by (1) people’s desire to engage with legal stories shared by their friends and networks; and (2) the ability of readers to go beyond simply reading, to participating in the story by sharing or giving.
Increasingly, digital natives will use online tools as a natural early step in any legal effort. Finding information, building digital communities and sharing stories, tools and advice is common online behavior (ranging from new parent groups to finding a new electronics item); it makes sense that the same model is finding its way to the legal sphere. Crowdfunding for legal cases builds naturally upon these trends — and social networks are the source of news and shareability for individuals and groups to raise funds and support for legal cases.
2. Access to clear legal information is in demand.
Two factors blocking the average person from using the law as a tool are the paywalling of legal resources and the technical nature of informational content. While various websites address the knowledge gap, from OpenLaws in Europe to Silicon Valley-based Justia, the law remains largely opaque. On the surface that may be seen as a boon for lawyers, but when individuals and groups feel they can’t understand the law, or even know where to start, they may be disinclined to access legal services at all.
Crowdfunding for legal cases offers a different sort of entry point into how legal information and resources can be freely shared. The public nature of crowdfunding efforts necessitates a type of storytelling that is simultaneously detailed about a specific legal process and accessible to the average person. As a result of this approach, people seeking legal knowledge can learn from the efforts of others who have made the details of their case public. Those bringing legal cases can learn about the processes standing before them and discover lawyers and organizations with whom it makes sense to engage. Having access to truly useful legal information as provided through real world examples leads to a form of crowdsourced knowledge every bit as transferrable as that which sits behind paywalls.
3. Technology is enabling collaboration, efficiency and access in legal environments.
The hot-ticket items in legal-tech are artificial intelligence and blockchain technology — two innovations that promise to increase efficiency and in their boldest incarnations, reduce entry-level legal work entirely.
Yet there are so many ways in which lower-key legal tech can enable collaboration and access. These aren’t just buzzwords — marketplaces and innovations in funding give more people access to existing legal services, and more understanding of the options available to them. Network effects of crowdfunding give broader exposure to legal issues and inbound leads from consumers who, for the first time, might understand that the law is something that is available to them too.
4. Developing payment ecosystems are transforming the scope and safety of donation-based funding.
The analog world of checks and faxes is disappearing. Platforms designed to encourage large numbers of people to engage in micro-transactions are spawning entirely new marketplaces in industries that had been dominated by a smaller number of larger transactions.
Micropayment ecosystems empower viral ideas to truly compete with deep pockets. At the same time as they make it easy for people to give, payment processing systems are also making money safer. Users can ensure that the platform or the payment processor they choose prevents money laundering and ensures donors aren’t on national and international sanctions lists. While expanding the resource base, technology is also making it safer.
5. Technology is democratizing the ways people can effect change through the court system.
Tareq and Ammar Aziz, two Yemeni brothers with United States green cards, were among the first people detained at Dulles Airport under the so-called Muslim Ban. The Legal Aid Justice Center immediately took their case and almost as quickly determined that part of the Aziz v. Trump strategy needed to revolve around a crowdfunding effort through the CrowdJustice platform. Within a day, that effort had helped the legal team drive significant national press and attract the Commonwealth of Virginia to intervene in the litigation, led by attorney general Mark Herring. Within less than a week, the crowdfunding contributions had more than doubled the target amount.
The battlefield in the fight for change is in the courtroom, and crowdfunding enables real people to get behind real cases with real lawyers — and to do so quickly and effectively. There’s transparency in the outcomes, which is what backers seek when choosing where and how to give. Most people have never had an opportunity to personally be a part of a legal case that directly challenges laws or policies they don’t agree with. Now that they can easily crowdfund for legal cases, people can engage directly with legal change in the community and be a check on the powerful.