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Changing the Price Tag: Building Coalitions for Financial Justice
Wednesday October 21, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center
Filing fees, outstanding warrants, criminal fines, court costs — the financial barriers to justice are well-documented and deeply resistant to change. Reports get written. Recommendations get made. And then nothing happens, because changing entrenched financial policies requires more than good analysis. It requires a coalition powerful enough to overcome the institutional inertia and the interests — courts that depend on fee revenue, jurisdictions that use fines as a budget tool, systems that have operated this way for so long that the harm has become invisible to the people who administer it.
The national landscape of financial barriers frames the conversation: what the research shows about how fees, fines, and warrants create cascading harm that extends far beyond the courtroom — lost jobs, lost housing, lost custody, spiraling debt, and a population that learns to avoid the justice system entirely rather than risk the cost of engaging with it. Then three case studies share different approaches to reducing these barriers.
Behavioral science insights from ideas42 reveal how court communications themselves compound financial barriers — how the language, timing, and design of notices and payment demands create confusion, fear, and inaction, and how evidence-based redesign can help people avoid barriers in the first place.
Judge Steve Duble, Justice of the Peace in Harris County Texas, demonstrates what one expansively minded court can accomplish on its own, including warrant recall and ability to pay reform, but also the challenges faced when trying to make systemic change without the support of a robust coalition.
Finally, several warrant withdrawal initiatives in Northeast Ohio illustrate how legal services attorneys, prosecutors, and courts came together to address massive warrant backlogs — including the unlikely alliance with a prosecutor's office that became a champion rather than an opponent, and the strategic choices that made that possible.
The through-line across all three perspectives is that financial justice reform isn't just a policy problem — it's a relationship problem, a communication problem, and a power problem.
Participants will be encouraged to explore how to use the presentation details to make financial justice reform happen in their own jurisdiction.

Speakers
avatar for Lisa Foster

Lisa Foster

Co-Executive Director, Fines and Fees Justice Center
Lisa Foster is the Co-Executive Director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending the unjust and harmful imposition of fines and fees in the criminal legal system. A retired judge, Lisa is also the former director of the Office for Access to Justice... Read More →
avatar for James Levin

James Levin

LegalWorks
CO

Colleen O'Toole

St. Thomas University Law School
avatar for Anne Stotler

Anne Stotler

ideas42, (Un)Warranted
Anne Stotler is a Principal Behavioral Designer at ideas42. She leads partnerships with courts and other stakeholders to improve court date communications nationwide through the (Un)warranted initiative, which has already prevented over 125K missed court dates and the resulting warrants... Read More →
PH

Paul Hergenroeder

LegalWorks
Paul Hergenroeder is a staff attorney with LegalWorks Inc. a Cleveland non profit legal services organization. A retired physician, I graduated from Cleveland State Law School in May of 2025. LegalWorks primary focus is representing clients with criminal record expungements. Today's... Read More →
avatar for Judge Steve Duble

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