2026 Equal Justice Conference

The Cook County Early Resolution Program is believed to be the nation’s largest sustained program providing brief services to people facing eviction. This session will review prior literature on the assessment of brief services programs and propose an innovative framework and methodology using intake information, attorney assessment of services provided, and post-service survey feedback from clients to assess various measures of effectiveness and impact – and how those measures inform iterative development of program design.

This session equips leadership, supervisors and attorneys with tools to conduct an Ethics Audit for client, case, and organization management. Participants will learn how to identify risk areas, strengthen internal systems, and comply with professional responsibility obligations by integrating these solutions into day-to-day legal operations, practice management, and supervision. Focus areas include conflicts, client confidentiality and data security, case acceptance procedures, case file management, attorneys’ fees and time tracking, trust accounts, and insurance considerations.

The pandemic has passed but our housing crisis persists. The senior population is growing. The future of public benefits is unsure. Let’s learn about changing needs in legal aid client communities. We’ll review results from five post-pandemic legal needs assessments conducted in rural and urban areas. Then we’ll lead discussion of how to use quantitative and qualitative data to uncover local needs, refine your service priorities, and begin strategic planning for challenges and opportunities ahead.

This session will share preliminary findings from a multi-state study of state court leadership perceptions on authorized justice workers. Encouraged by resolutions passed by both the ABA House of Delegates and the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ)/Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) to study and explore community justice worker models in each state, this research project engages both the judiciary and court administrators in jurisdictions that have both already adopted justice worker reforms and states that have not.