Cornell Tech develops next-generation justice solutions & legal professionals

Cornell Tech is the graduate school and research center of Cornell University that delivers on its motto: “We don’t just study technology. We build its future.” 

For the past six years, one of Cornell Tech’s popular offerings has been the hands-on course, LAW6304: Delivering Legal Services through Technology, in which students in law, business, engineering, and computer science learn about the rapidly changing legal profession and get experience developing real-world applications that replicate the thinking and actions of legal professionals. 

Innovative Solutions for Real-World Justice Challenges

The students of the 2024 course worked with three legal service organizations to develop six legal applications (aka justice solutions), that help increase access to justice:

• Arbitrary Detention Analysis and Reporting Tool: Enables legal professionals to rapidly assess the human rights violations in cases of unjustified incarceration by a foreign government – and also facilitates the rapid drafting of a formal appeal document to be submitted to the United Nations.  
  
  
• Rehabilitation Letter Generator for Job-Seekers with a Criminal Record: Enables people with a conviction history to rapidly generate a narrowly tailored letter to a prospective employer explaining their rehabilitation and readiness for employment.  
  
  
• Discriminatory Advertisement Reporting System: Enables citizens to recognize and report ads for housing and employment that violate state and federal law by specifying requirements or preferences based on race, conviction history, source of income, or other protected characteristics under state and federal law.  
  
  
• Reentry Handbook Generator for People Leaving Federal Prison: Enables users to quickly generate a narrowly tailored guidebook to help them navigate the many challenges and opportunities they will face after leaving incarceration.  
  
  
• Incarceration Experience Interviewer: Conducts a dynamic and in-depth interview with formally incarcerated people to gather information about the realities of incarceration – and makes that data available to public policymakers and AI system developers to help facilitate justice reform that is justified and effective.  
  
  
• Request-Drafting Tool for Tenants with Disabilities: Enables renters to quickly draft a persuasive and legally compliant letter to their landlord requesting a reasonable accommodation from a policy or modification to rental unit to address the effects of a qualified disability, as required by state and federal law. 

Focusing on Skills Required for Modern Legal Practice

Each of these justice solutions was developed with the Neota no-code software development platform that is used by many large law firms and corporate legal departments to leverage the expertise of legal professionals – and increase the quality and reach of legal services. By building the justice solutions with the no-code platform, the Cornell Tech students developed many skills that are now key in the modern practice of law:

• Design Thinking: User-centric approaches to problem-solving
• Workflow Design & Document Automation: Streamlining processes
• Knowledge Engineering: Translating legal expertise into automated systems
• App Building in No-Code Tools: Democratizing application development
• Multi-Media Integration: Leveraging video and AI-driven avatars
• Project Management & Client Collaboration: Bridging the gap between theory and practice

The course culminated in a showcase event in which experts in legal technology from the legal department of Travelers Insurance evaluated the student’s solutions and gave awards for exceptional work.

Neota’s Commitment to the Future of Law & Access to Justice

Neota is proud to support Cornell Tech and Cornell University as it leads the world in innovative higher education and builds real-world solutions to help improve access to justice in America and beyond.