ABA creates new Center for Innovation

The American Bar Association announced this week the creation of the Center for Innovation, a venture designed to advance the ABA’s efforts to improve the delivery of legal services to the public through innovative programs and initiatives.

The center will drive innovation in the justice system and the legal profession by serving as a resource for ABA members, maintaining an inventory of the ABA’s innovation efforts and the efforts of the domestic and international legal services community, and operating a program of innovative fellowships to work with other professionals, such as technologists, entrepreneurs and design professionals, to create models that improve the justice system.

“Closing the access-to-justice gap and making the legal system accessible to all people is of critical importance. The Center for Innovation will help bring together the best and most forward-thinking ideas for making our system more efficient and available,” ABA President Linda A. Klein said.

Located in the ABA’s Chicago office, the Center for Innovation will identify and advance ideas that improve legal services and legal education and will include staff with substantive expertise and skills. Janet Jackson, formerly the director of the ABA’s Office of the President, will be managing director of the Center, which was created based on a recommendation from the ABA’s Commission on the Future of Legal Services.

Andrew Perlman, dean of Suffolk University Law School in Boston, will chair the governing council. The Governing Council Members will include leaders from the legal profession and business community, the judiciary, and legal education, as well as young lawyers, technology experts and other innovators.