Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

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9:00am EDT

Right Services, Right Time: Redesigning Family Court Triage With Data

Thursday October 22, 2026 9:00am - 10:30am EDT

Family courts nationwide are facing increasing caseloads, limited resources, and a growing population of self-represented litigants. In response, courts are exploring new ways to triage cases earlier, reduce conflict, and connect families to the right services at the right time—without requiring major system overhauls.
This session will highlight a collaborative, court-led initiative that began with a single funded jurisdiction and was intentionally designed to scale. Led by the National Center for State Courts in partnership with Nevada and other participating courts, the project integrates structured intake, service triage, and data dashboards to support more effective family case management.
Panelists will share how one court’s initial investment enabled development and testing of tools that could later be made available to other jurisdictions at a significantly lower cost—creating a replicable model for court innovation. The session will present preliminary findings, early implementation lessons, and practical insights into governance, funding structures, and cross-jurisdiction collaboration.
Rather than focusing on technology alone, this discussion emphasizes process design, data-informed decision-making, and institutional partnerships that support access to justice while respecting local court practices. Attendees will leave with concrete takeaways on how courts can pilot, evaluate, and scale triage-based solutions responsibly and sustainably.

Speakers

Ayyoub Ajmi

Digital Communications and Learning Initiatives Librarian, University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC)

Ayyoub Ajmi is a digital communications and learning initiatives librarian at the UMKC School of Law. He is building and managing an integral digital communications platform, which provides access to the law school's library and its digital resources, supports law faculty members... Read More →

Katherine Stocks

State Court Administrator, Supreme Court of Nevada

Katherine Stocks was appointed to the State Court Administrator for Nevada on February 16, 2021. Her previous experience includes both public service and private legal practice. Previously, she served as Court Administrator for the 10th Judicial District in Kansas (2015-2021). Katherine... Read More →

Alicia Davis

Principal Court Management Consultant, National Center for State Courts

Talk to me about the Family Justice Initiative, a project of the Conference(s) of Chief Justices and State Court Administrators and in partnership with the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) and National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges... Read More →

Judge Keven O'Grady

Thursday October 22, 2026 9:00am - 10:30am EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Court Admin

10:45am EDT

Court Navigator Programs: Building and Sustaining Court-Community Bridges

Thursday October 22, 2026 10:45am - 12:15pm EDT

Cincinnati Convention Center

Court navigator programs are one of the most promising models for closing the justice gap — trained non-lawyer community members stationed in courthouses who help people understand processes, complete forms, and navigate a system designed by lawyers for lawyers. The concept is simple. The execution is not. Where do you find navigators — volunteers, AmeriCorps members, paid staff, law students? How do you train someone to help with legal processes without crossing into legal advice? How do you integrate a new role into a courthouse culture that may not want it? How do you keep a program alive when the grant runs out, the champion judge retires, or your best navigator takes a better-paying job? This session is about the operational reality of building these programs — not the vision, but the plumbing.
This panel will discuss a long-running court navigator program in Illinois that leverages AmeriCorps fellows embedded in courthouses statewide, a newly launched navigator program in two counties in Kansas, and an exciting new national partnership between Legal Link and the National Center for State Courts bringing Legal First Aid® training (currently used for frontline community workers already embedded in people's lives to recognize legal issues, provide basic orientation, and connect people to help before a problem becomes a crisis) directly into court navigator programs across the country.
Panelists will discuss how each program is structured, how it came to be, and what it takes to build and sustain it — including the funding models and partnerships that keep these programs running. From there, the conversation will turn to training: how do you prepare non-lawyers to do this work well, and what does quality look like across different program models? Panelists will share honest lessons learned, and close with what's energizing them right now — all so you can think through a navigator program for your own jurisdiction, that can deal with realities on the ground.
By participating in this session, attendees will gain insight into practical approaches for building and sustaining court and community navigator programs, while also learning how you can leverage national resources to develop and enhance navigator programs in your jurisdiction.

Speakers

Sarah Hoskinson

Kansas State Courts

Kate Crowley Richardson

Executive Director, Legal Link

Kate Crowley Richardson (she/her) is Executive Director of Legal Link, a California-based nonprofit whose Legal First Aid® curriculum has certified more than 4,000 community legal workers across seven states. She previously served as Legal Director at Swords to Plowshares, where... Read More →

Abigail Lessman

Eviction Resolution Program Manager, Kate Richardson

Casey Forsythe

Illinois Justice Corps

Stacey Jonas Weiler

Program Operations Director, Illinois Bar Foundation

Jill Roberts

National Center for State Courts

Jill Roberts, JD, is a Principal Court Management Consultant at the National Center for
State Courts. Her work is focused on expanding access to state courts with a focus on
people without lawyers, people with disabilities, and people with limited English
proficiency. Prior to jo... Read More →

Thursday October 22, 2026 10:45am - 12:15pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Court Admin

1:30pm EDT

Understand, Redesign, Test: Transforming How People Learn from Legal Information

Thursday October 22, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT

Cincinnati Convention Center

In this session, each presenter will address a different “lens” to apply when developing and improving content for self-represented litigants. They will each provide a list of principles or issues to spot when designing content, which will be provided in a sheet to attendees.
1. Education Pedagogy: We will explain the difference between working memory and long-term memory and why it matters for SRLs. Drawing from tools such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, we will break down how people learn information and provide basic strategies for disseminating different categories of information.
2. Inclusive Design: We will discuss common communication barriers that SRLs face and how this contributes to decreased confidence and trust in program resources. The presentation will focus on how a team of researchers, inclusive designers and mediation program staff transformed the notice, webpage and video resources of an Illinois mediation program using scaffolding and inclusive, mobile-first design principles.
3. Accessibility: We will share a triage framework for legal content from the NH Judicial Branch form modernization project. The presentation will spotlight three tiers of accessible design approaches and common issues to look out for when crafting for accessibility. Attendees will learn how to break up an accessibility project into an approachable, practical two-phase process.
Activity: Attendees will analyze a 1-2 page sample document with before/after examples, identifying which principles/issues identified during the presentations they think were applied to the improved document. They will have the opportunity to add their own improvements as well. Working in groups, attendees will share what they learned and walk away with strategies to apply to their own materials.

Speakers

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

Ayyoub Ajmi

Katherine Stocks

Alicia Davis

Judge Keven O'Grady

10:45am EDT

Sarah Hoskinson

Kate Crowley Richardson

Abigail Lessman

Casey Forsythe

Stacey Jonas Weiler

Jill Roberts

1:30pm EDT

Jon Confer

Bailey Goldenbaim

Stephen Sullivan

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