Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

Name: Stop Reinventing the Wheel: Using Design Principles, Open Source, and Shared Infrastructure to Spread Innovations
Start: 2026-10-22T13:30:00-0400
End: 2026-10-22T15:00:00-0400

Stop Reinventing the Wheel: Using Design Principles, Open Source, and Shared Infrastructure to Spread Innovations

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

Cincinnati Convention Center

Many jurisdictions are building the same thing from scratch. The same guided interview tools, the same self-help website content, the same intake workflows, the same court form designs — developed independently by hundreds of organizations on their own. This session opens with a discussion about why is scaling innovations so hard in justice.
In response, panelists will introduce a set of design principles that can help identify the DNA of these innovations with the premise that focusing on these principles (instead of strict replication) will accelerate their uptake and spread. Shared infrastructure can also accelerate innovation with panelists highlighting open-source document assembly platforms that already allow jurisdictions to adapt rather than rebuild, shared website platforms that provide common architecture while allowing local customization, and an emerging vision for a justice innovation commons where workflows, taxonomies, and evaluation protocols are shared across jurisdictions the way medical data standards transformed healthcare interoperability.
These aren't hypothetical — they're operating now, and the organizations behind them have learned hard lessons about what makes shared infrastructure succeed: documentation, modularity, governance, licensing, and the willingness to build for reuse rather than just for your own needs.
The session will then flip the conversation from the stage to the room. Through a structured, interactive "have/need" exchange, participants will not only have an opportunity to address real-world challenges they face; they'll also generate guidance for how national organizations and networks can spread innovations in ways that really work for those on the ground.

Speakers

Katya Fels Smyth

Full Frame Initiative

For over three decades, Katya Smyth has challenged assumptions and structures underlying American systems, including that scale and perpetuity are inherently valuable, and led organizations and alliances that offer a new way forward in fields including community development, human... Read More →

Quinten Steenhuis

Clinical Fellow, Suffolk LIT Lab's Document Assembly

Quinten Steenhuis is the co-director of the Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation and Technology Lab and founder and CEO of Lemma Legal Consulting. At Suffolk, he leads the Document Assembly Line project that builds and maintains CourtFormsOnline.org. His work focuses... Read More →

Margaret D. Hagan

Executive Director, Legal Design Lab, Stanford Legal Design Lab

Margaret Hagan is the Executive Director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford University, as well as lecturer at the Law School and d.school. She is a lawyer, and holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a DPhil from Queen’s University Belfast, an MA from Central European University... Read More →

Sandy Ambrozy

SRLN Governance Leadership Team, Urban Institute

Sandra Ambrozy is a nonresident fellow for the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute in D.C. Previously, Ambrozy was a senior fellow and senior program officer at The Kresge Foundation, where she developed strategic and layered investments to address critical... Read More →

Thursday October 22, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Cincinnati Convention Center 537 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202

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Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

Katya Fels Smyth

Quinten Steenhuis

Margaret D. Hagan

Sandy Ambrozy

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Success you have shared X tickets.

Access to Justice Network Conference 2026

Katya Fels Smyth

Quinten Steenhuis

Margaret D. Hagan

Sandy Ambrozy

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