Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

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9:00am EDT

Process Over Prescription: Development & Practice of the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts' Help Center's Same-Day Eviction-Defense Program

Wednesday October 21, 2026 9:00am - 10:30am EDT

Cincinnati Convention Center

There will never be enough attorneys to provide full representation to every tenant facing eviction. Hamilton County, Ohio decided that wasn't a reason to do nothing — it was a reason to build something different. On December 6, 2023, the City of Cincinnati unanimously passed the Access to Counsel ordinance, creating a funding structure for same-day legal assistance to unrepresented tenants. Less than a year later, the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Help Center provided its first in-court, stand-up representation. By the time of this conference, the Help Center will be providing same-day defense five days per week, having filed over two thousand appearances on behalf of tenants who would otherwise have faced eviction alone.
The panelists will begin with a brief overview of the eviction ecosystem in Hamilton County, Ohio, including the life cycle of an eviction case and the prevention services that were available to tenant-defendants before same-day legal assistance launched in 2024. Building upon this knowledge, the panelists will then discuss how same-day representation was designed and implemented by the Help Center. Panelists will focus on how same-day representation targeted gaps in the existing eviction-prevention ecosystem and allowed the Help Center to exponentially increase the percentage of tenants receiving legal assistance with a relatively minimal investment. The panelists will also discuss data collected from inception of this program and how it can be used to identify populations in need, assess program effectiveness, inform upstream eviction-prevention efforts, and assist with future partnership and fundraising efforts.

Speakers

Nicha Zingarelli

Hamilton County Municipal Court Help Center

Nicha Zingarelli (she/her) is the Director and Chief Attorney of the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Help Center. Nicha has practiced law for over twenty years and has overseen a dramatic expansion of the Help Center during her leadership. Nicha has co-founded the eviction limited... Read More →

Shannon Price

Hamilton County Municipal Court Help Center

Samantha DiDomenico

Director, Stout Consulting

Samantha DiDomenico is a Director in Stout’s Transformative Change Consulting group. Samantha has 10 years of experience providing consulting services to for-profit and non-profit clients in a variety of industries. She has expertise in understanding large, complex systems and data... Read More →

Wednesday October 21, 2026 9:00am - 10:30am EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Court Admin

10:45am EDT

Court Reforms That Work: Reimagining Housing Court

Wednesday October 21, 2026 10:45am - 12:15pm EDT

Cincinnati Convention Center

Many housing courts are plagued with stubbornly high default rates, but courts can take action to address this problem. This session will include a conversation with a judge and court administrator sharing the practical reforms they have made in their respective courts to boost tenant engagement and appearance rates in housing court.
From revamping court forms to changing how cases are docketed and leveraging remote appearances and other technology, each court has been able to dramatically reduce default judgments and improve tenant engagement and outcomes.

Speakers

Samira Nazem

Principal Court Management Consultant, National Center for State Courts

Samira Nazem is a Principal Court Management Consultant at the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) overseeing the Eviction Diversion Initiative which supports state and local courts in designing, implementing, and evaluating eviction diversion programs and related court reform... Read More →

Judge Steve Duble

Justice of the Peace, Harris County Courts

Steve Duble has been the Justice Peace for Harris County Precinct 1, Place 2 (located in downtown Houston) since January 1, 2023. Since taking office, he has taken bold action to increase access to justice. He earned his undergraduate degree from Texas Christian University in 1986... Read More →

Mairead Napolitano

Civil Division Administrator, Las Vegas Justice Court

Mairead Napolitano serves as the Civil Division Administrator for the Las Vegas Justice Court, where she oversees the daily operations of one of Nevada's busiest civil courts. Since assuming this role in 2021, she has led numerous initiatives to improve caseflow management, expand... Read More →

Wednesday October 21, 2026 10:45am - 12:15pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Court Admin

1:30pm EDT

Dispute Resolution Reimagined: From Courtroom to Screen

Wednesday October 21, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT

Cincinnati Convention Center

Self-represented parties are no longer the exception in most courts, but the technology hasn't always kept up with their needs. As resolution processes move online, the question isn't whether digital tools can serve them, but whether anyone designed those tools with them in mind in the first place.
For this hands-on workshop, we'll map out the people and the problems they're facing and design an online resolution pathway at your table, drawing on case studies and lessons we've learned while building digital tools for separating families across the U.S. and Australia. From there, each table will select a dispute type and design a digital-first resolution pathway: how someone begins without legal representation, what information is gathered and how, how much is self-guided versus supported by a person, and how the outcome becomes something a court can accept.
You'll leave with a design template and a usability rubric for evaluating digital resolution processes in your own jurisdiction.

Speakers

Luke Thomas

Principal Legal Designer, Portable

Luke Thomas is Principal Legal Designer at Portable, a design and technology agency specialising in legal technology and access to justice. He has led the design of award-winning digital products that make legal help more accessible — including amica, the national family separation... Read More →

Simon Goodrich

Portable

Maya Markovich

Justice Tech Alliance

Greg Kochansky

American Arbitration Institute AAA

Greg Kochansky is Vice President, Thought Leadership and Applied AI at the American Arbitration Association, where he co-leads the AAA-ICDR Institute (the organization’s internal think tank), helps to build and test AI-powered software applications, formulates AI ethics and governance... Read More →

Wednesday October 21, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Court Admin

3:15pm EDT

Punishment After the Sentence: Collateral Consequences and the Struggle for Second Chances

Wednesday October 21, 2026 3:15pm - 4:45pm EDT

Cincinnati Convention Center

The sentence ends. The punishment doesn't. A person completes probation, pays fines, serves time — and then discovers that the conviction follows them into every corner of their civil life. They can't pass a background check for employment. Professional licenses are out of reach. They're denied housing because a landlord's screening algorithm flags a years-old misdemeanor. Public benefits may be restricted. Voting rights may be gone. Custody proceedings are colored by a record that was supposed to be "paid for." For millions of Americans, a criminal record creates a permanent architecture of civil barriers that makes stability nearly impossible — long after the formal sentence has been served.
This session maps that architecture and the Ohio legal tools available to dismantle it. A team of attorneys from the Ohio Justice & Policy Center presents the landscape of collateral consequences with a case example: what actually happens when someone with a criminal record tries to get a job, obtain a professional license, find housing, or otherwise participate in society. Then they walk through Ohio’s legal remedies — expungement, record sealing, certificates of qualification for employment, certificates of qualification for housing, Ohio’s Governor’s Expedited Pardon Project, and safe harbor expungement for survivors of human trafficking — showing how each works in practice, who qualifies, what the process looks like, and where the gaps are. The presentation is honest about limitations: record-clearing laws vary dramatically by state, many convictions remain ineligible, and even sealed records can resurface in unexpected ways.
Participants will work through a hypothetical case that makes the scope of the problem concrete. Each table reviews the case example with a criminal history and identifies collateral consequences and maps the remedies available in Ohio. The exercise reveals uncomfortable asymmetries: barriers that exist everywhere but remedies that exist in only certain jurisdictions. A real-time audience poll surfaces what record-clearing tools each participant's jurisdiction offers and where the biggest gaps are. You'll leave with a better understanding of collateral consequences, Ohio record-clearing resources, and advocacy efforts for expanding second-chance pathways in your jurisdiction.

Speakers

Lindsay Baruffa

Ohio Justice & Policy Center

Lindsay Baruffa is a senior attorney and Director of the Second Chance Project at the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, where she works to remove barriers to education, employment, and housing for people with criminal records. Before joining OJPC, she was an attorney at the Hamilton County... Read More →

Ashley Ward

Ohio Justice & Policy Center

Ashley Ward is a staff attorney with the Ohio Justice & Policy Center’s Second Chance Project, which she joined in September 2023. She provides legal service services, policy advocacy, outreach, and education with a focus on housing law, working to remove housing barriers for Ohioans... Read More →

Devin Perry

Ohio Justice & Policy Center

Devin Perry is a staff attorney with the Second Chance Project at the Ohio Justice & Policy Center. She provides legal services, outreach, and education, focused on human trafficking survivors, with particular emphasis on post-conviction relief, survivor advocacy, and Safe Harbor... Read More →

Wednesday October 21, 2026 3:15pm - 4:45pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Court Admin

Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

From $62.13

Tickets

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Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

9:00am EDT

Nicha Zingarelli

Shannon Price

Samantha DiDomenico

10:45am EDT

Samira Nazem

Judge Steve Duble

Mairead Napolitano

1:30pm EDT

Luke Thomas

Simon Goodrich

Maya Markovich

Greg Kochansky

3:15pm EDT

Lindsay Baruffa

Ashley Ward

Devin Perry

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