TALS Staff to Present at National Equal Justice Conference

Three staff members from the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services (TALS) will present at the 2017 Equal Justice Conference hosted by the American Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. The annual conference, held in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania this year, joins all components of the civil legal aid community to discuss and address issues related to the delivery of legal services to low-income individuals in need of legal assistance.This year's event runs May 4-6, 2017.

TALS' Executive Director Ann Jarvis Pruitt and Equal Justice Works Fellow Kirsten Jacobson will present on Legal Wellness Check-ups. Through collaboration with legal providers, social services, and technology innovators, TALS implemented an automated legal wellness checkup to provide preventive, holistic services to low-income communities. This session navigates the benefits, barriers, design, and implementation process of artificial intelligence and logic-based legal wellness checkups.

TALS' Director of Training, Compliance, & Technology Samantha Sanchez will present on ABA Free Legal Answers which launched in August 2016 and is now fully live in more than 20 states, with more to roll out in upcoming months. Samantha and fellow panelists Buck Lewis and Albukerk will discuss the experience to date as well as plans for continued growth of the site. Attendees will hear what participating states have done to recruit attorneys and encourage the client population to use the site for brief questions.