Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

Name: Uncomplicating Courts: Simplifying Rules, Procedures, and the Litigant Journey
Start: 2026-10-21T09:00:00-0400
End: 2026-10-21T10:30:00-0400

Uncomplicating Courts: Simplifying Rules, Procedures, and the Litigant Journey

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

Cincinnati Convention Center

Every court has procedures that made sense when they were written — for a system where everyone had a lawyer. Filing deadlines that require calendar calculations. Service requirements that assume you know what "service" means. Answer forms that read like they were drafted for opposing counsel, not for the person who just got sued. When 98% of defendants in a case type are self-represented, these procedures aren't just inconvenient — they're the reason people lose by default without ever understanding what happened. This session presents a tested framework for finding and fixing unnecessary procedural complexity.
IAALS and NCSC present the Uncomplicated Courts Framework, which gives court leadership a systematic method for mapping the litigant journey — every step a self-represented person must take from learning they have a legal problem through resolution — and identifying where rules, forms, and procedures assume knowledge, resources, or legal training that most court users don't have.
Court leaders from Colorado and Nevada provide concrete examples of how they have used the framework to make real changes: simplifying filing processes, rewriting notices in plain language, eliminating procedural steps that serve no purpose when there's no attorney on one side, and changing rules and statutes that created barriers nobody intended.
Utah's experience brings the framework to life through a specific, high-stakes application: debt collection cases, where the gap between the system's assumptions and reality is starkest. The state's Supreme Court formed an ad hoc committee to reform procedures in high-volume cases, and participants will hear both the theories behind the initiative and the institutional challenges when implementing large scale change.
Participants will then do the work themselves. A litigant journey mapping exercise asks each table to pick one common case type in their jurisdiction and trace every step a self-represented person must take — from the moment they receive a summons or realize they have a legal problem through filing, hearings, and resolution. Where does the system assume they have a lawyer? Where does it require knowledge they don't have or resources they can't access? Where do people give up? The exercise consistently reveals that courts have more unnecessary complexity than anyone realized, and that the highest-impact changes are often the simplest. We’ll also ask participants to examine the court staff perspective. Where are court stakeholders running into procedural friction? Where are staff absorbing work that simplified procedures could eliminate? You'll leave with the Uncomplicated Courts toolkit, a litigant journey map you've already started, and a prioritized list of procedural changes to bring back to your court leadership.

Speakers

Danielle Kalil

Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System IAALS

Danielle Kalil is the Director of Civil Justice and the Judiciary at IAALS. In this role, she is responsible for leading the vision and strategy of IAALS’ work on civil justice reform and the judiciary. The focus of her work is to build a fair, accessible, and effective justice... Read More →

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 →

Magistrate Andrea Paprzycki

Magistrate Judge, Colorado 4th Judicial District

Ms. Paprzycki began practice as a litigator in the areas of collections and insurance defense. She was an in-house counsel prior to becoming a Magistrate for the 4th Judicial District, Colorado in May 2018.

In 2023, Ms. Paprzycki was awarded a grant from NCSC to implement an eviction diversion and recovery program. She regards the program, known as Division CARE (Court Assisted Recovery from Eviction), as her greatest achievement. To this end, she brought to fruition her vision of an... 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 →

Megan Connelly

Access to Justice Director, Utah State Bar

Megan Connelly was named the Utah State Bar’s Access to Justice Director in December 2023. She brings over a decade of experience in social impact work to the position. Megan held previous roles in legal services, higher education, nonprofits, and philanthropy with a focus on issues... Read More →

Nathanael Player

Justice-by-Design

Nathanael Player is an assistant professor of professional practice at Utah State University, where he teaches social workers and allied professionals to practice law as Community Justice Advocates. Previously he served as vice chair of Utah's Regulatory Sandbox oversight board and... Read More →

Maryt Fredrickson

Chief of Staff to the Chief Justice, Utah Supreme Court

Maryt Fredrickson is the Chief of Staff to the Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court where she works on access to justice and regulatory reform initiatives. Maryt has worked in state courts since 2014. She joined the Utah Judicial Branch for her current position in January 2025... Read More →

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

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