2026 Equal Justice Conference

How we talk about civil justice shapes whether people understand and support it. This session introduces a national effort to align messaging across courts, legal aid, and the private bar. Panelists will share insights on what resonates with key audiences, how to use clear, nonpartisan language, and how to build a shared narrative that strengthens trust and expands support for civil justice.

What happens when leaders lean into their strengths as collaborators and abandon the scarcity mindset of the past, in order to better serve the community? This session will share insights gained and best practices learned from Orange County's first all-female team of executives from major legal aid organizations in their pioneering collaborative fundraising effort: to fund the creation of a unified, coordinated entry system for legal aid for Orange County’s low-income communities. The presentation will cover the group’s strategies to create synergy amongst their organizations, to draw in regional foundations into the effort, and to expand outreach to funders outside the group’s usual circles.

What if every legal aid project was designed not only to succeed, but also to teach us something? This session explores how project managers can incorporate evaluation to improve delivery, adapt to real-time challenges, and document meaningful results. Presenters will share how they built evaluation into timelines, workflows, and reporting without requiring a statistics degree. Attendees will learn to move beyond compliance reporting toward evaluation that fuels learning and continuous improvement.

This interactive session will use best practices to help participants conceptualize a guardianship defense practice in their own organizations, from scratch. First, the session will give a high-level overview of guardianship defense law, including from the Older Americans Act regulations. Then, participants will be guided through a brainstorming session to identify key resources and collaborators in their communities to help make an organized guardianship defense program a reality.

Great pro bono programs don’t just recruit volunteers -- they build systems that set them up for success. This panel explores practical strategies for onboarding, training, and retaining volunteers, with real-world models from Pro Bono Network and Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida. Ideal for legal aid staff, pro bono coordinators, and law firm professionals who design or support attorney engagement and training efforts.

In an interactive lecture format, attendees will learn the basics of the Americans with Disability Act (“ADA”) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“504”) coupled with effective strategies to fight disability discrimination against applicants and recipients of Public Assistance, SNAP and Medicaid. There will be several interactive hypotheticals to facilitate issue spotting, and participants will learn the nuts and bolts of investigating and developing federal ADA/504 complaints. There will be an update on the rapidly changing legal landscape of the ADA/504.

This session combines a brief presentation with facilitated small-group conversations to show how community justice workers and trauma-informed approaches can keep youth out of the justice system. Participants will engage directly with scenarios and problem-solving discussions, leaving with practical strategies to strengthen families, build trust, and improve community safety.