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Opening the Gate: Regulatory Reform That Expands Who Can Provide Legal Help
Wednesday October 21, 2026 3:15pm - 4:45pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center
The legal profession's monopoly on legal services is fracturing — and the fractures look different in every state. Washington created an entirely new licensing framework for non-lawyer legal service providers. Arizona and Utah authorized community-based justice workers through court-community partnerships. Indiana built standing innovation infrastructure — a Chief Innovation Officer and a permanent Innovation Committee — to run a continuous pipeline of pilots reshaping how courts and litigants handle everything from case pathways to court data and analytics. Different states, different pathways to the same destination: expanding who is allowed to help people with legal problems.
This session brings together the institutional actors who made reform happen in each state — not advocates arguing for reform in the abstract, but the people who navigated the politics, built the coalitions, and faced the resistance. A judge who championed new provider categories from the bench. A bar leader who negotiated consumer protection frameworks with a skeptical profession. A Chief Innovation Officer building the institutional machinery to pilot new models of legal service delivery. And a program implementer deploying justice workers on the ground. 

Speakers
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Grace Spulak

Senior Court Management Consultant, National Center for State Courts
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Craig Shank

Washington Practice of Law Board
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Renata de Carvalho Garcia

Washington State Bar
avatar for Robert Rath

Robert Rath

Chief Innovation Officer, Indiana State Courts
Robert (Bob) Rath serves as the Chief Innovation Officer for the Indiana Supreme Court’s Office of Judicial Administration, where he leads several modernization efforts across the judicial branch. His work includes oversight of internal process improvement initiatives and the Court’s... Read More →
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Judge Samuel Thumma

Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals
Judge Samuel A. Thumma has served on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, since 2012, including as Chief Judge. Before that, he served for five years as a trial Judge on the Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County. Sam chairs the Arizona Commission on Access to Justice. He... Read More →
Wednesday October 21, 2026 3:15pm - 4:45pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202
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