With grant writing support from Lagniappe Law Lab, the Louisiana Access to Justice Commission was awarded $100,000 from the National Center for State Courts "Justice for All" project. Lagniappe Law Lab will serve as project manager for the initiative, which affords Louisiana the opportunity to complete a comprehensive "inventory assessment" of its access to justice ecosystem and develop a strategic plan for shrinking the civil justice gap.

The Inventory Assessment phase of the project will focus on developing a formal survey to understand the current civil legal justice system. Targeted versions will collect insight from Legal Stakeholder, Non-Legal Stakeholders, and End Users alike. From there, Listening Sessions will be held to get more qualitative feedback from community members about their justice needs and experience. Following that, a stakeholder summit will be held to review the findings and begin charting the course for strategic planning.

During the Strategic Planning phase, the JFA project team, advisory committee, and other stakeholders will tackle the enormous task of identifying potential solutions to deficiencies identified in the inventory assessment and prioritizing based on need, impact, and feasibility. All of this will chart the path to a more robust civil justice system in Louisiana, working toward 100% access to justice.

The project is set to take place from October 2019 to September 2020, culminating in a final report and action plan.

Lagniappe Law Lab is a proud grantee of the Louisiana Bar Foundation.