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Justice Services

Being a startup founder

I grew up in an unequal society. Early on in my life, I saw the justice systems failing to address problems of the people. I want to solve justice problems of people. I think the best way to do that is by building innovative tools people want to use.

To solve people´s problems at scale, I want to build a platform that is scalable with a proven business model. I have a strong team with me which will execute the idea and turn that into a reality to create a better future.
Do you have any examples I could learn from?

Camilla, startup founder

Being a court leader

It is a big responsibility to be a court leader. My work has a major impact on the lives of people.
Our court procedures have become too complex. We work hard, but our organisation struggles to provide timely and effective solutions to people in need of justice.
I believe that our courts should embrace innovation. We need newer ways to organise the delivery of solutions to people. This will also make our courts better.

How can I learn more about innovations that I can adopt in my court?

Amina, Court Leader

We are looking for guidance

I am ambitious and goal oriented. I want to urgently solve justice problems of the people. I want to move quickly and need answers on how I can reach big impact numbers.
First I want to know if I am on the right track with my justice innovation? Are there any best practices I can look at?

Secondly, I want to learn about good business models. And yes, knowing about other innovators working on similar services elsewhere is always helpful.

Picture of Camilla, Startup founder
Camilla, Startup founder

As a court leader, my primary task is to efficiently solve the cases people bring to court. Many people solve their conflicts out of court, knowing that we are there. If they get stuck in finding solutions, they should have quick access to my court.

We cannot solve every conflict with a judgment. I want to learn how my court can assist people to solve justice problems by themselves. This requires rethinking our organisation. What innovations can I adopt that have worked in other courts and tribunals?
And oh, I see a fellow traveler with me - the innovator!

Picture of Amina, Court Leader
Amina, Court Leader

We are trying to understand

Treatments that work most effectively to solve justice issues
Justice products and services most needed by people
Financial models that justice innovations can use to scale
Who is willing to
pay to innovate justice?

The
Gamechangers

With over a decade of experience of supporting justice innovations from all over the world, HiiL has gathered significant insights into the kind of innovations that can become gamechangers in access to justice. A gamechanger is a justice innovation with a strong potential to solve legal problems fairly can deliver effective treatments consistently, is financially sustainable and is scalable as a service. A gamechanger should easily resolve the needs of over 80 percent of the people experiencing a particular justice problem. It makes justice accessible and affordable for people. 

By identifying these categories of gamechanging innovations, HiiL wants to promote successful justice services. Focus on gamechangers will help innovators to design innovations that have the potential to deliver effective and sustainable justice services. The discussion will help policymakers to channel funds into viable innovations and formulate regulations in which these gamechangers can thrive. In the below section, we invite you to explore the key characteristics of 7 categories of game-changing innovative justice services.

The best services

Justice services can take shape of a privately run enterprise, or processes governed by the court system. Many other government services are also relevant: ombudsmen, tribunals or other government agencies.

To be user friendly, justice services need to be sustainable as well as scalable in their approach and simple in execution. Successful justice services need to be led by strong team. 

In courts, many judges are doing pilots of innovative justice services. Teams of motivated individuals try to improve access to justice through startups. The reality is that many of them do not scale, however. There  are a lot of lessons to be learnt from these pilots and startups. These people know what works and what does not. 

Key ingredients for a successful justice innovation are:

Sustainability

Scalability

Team

Monitoring outcomes

Justice Innovation Labs

Designing thinking methods are increasingly used in health, education and financial services. With the help of this method, HiiL is designing sustainable and scalable solutions to justice problems along with a diverse team of stakeholders in the justice innovation labs. Along with designing a prototype of a solution, we also develop a sustainable financial model and an implementation plan. Find what solutions what these solutions look like on the Justice Innovation Labs page. 

Justice Innovations: An Impression

In collaboration with the German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH (GIZ), HiiL developed a research under the title “Use of technologies in judicial reform and access to justice cooperation”project. As part of this research, we create an international and comparative overview of justice innovations. We study them from a variety of perspectives. This includes analysis of different digital tools,evaluating them from the lens of business models and governance structures. The map below shows the overview of the innovations from across the globe that were included in the study. .

Bangladesh - 2 innovations

Afghanistan - 1 innovation

Armenia - 1 innovation

Australia - 4 innovations

Azerbaijan - 1 innovation

Malawi - 1 innovation

  • Malawi Judiciary Case Management Sytem

Nigeria - 2 innovations

Pakistan - 1 innovation

Bhutan - 1 innovation

Rwanda - 3 innovations

South Africa - 3 innovations

Tanzania - 1 innovations

Ukraine - 4 innovations

USA - 14 innovations

Zimbabwe - 1 innovation

Burundi - 1 innovation

1 innovation

1 innovations

1 innovation

1 innovation

1 innovation

1 innovation

  • Malawi Judiciary Case Management System

1 innovation

1 innovation

  • yAvo

2 innovations

1 innovation

3 innovations

1 innovation

2 innovations

1 innovation

1 innovation

1 innovation

1 innovation

1 innovation

Show list of all innovations

Data on Justice Innovations

The following charts show the  data collected from 150 public and private justice innovations from across 68 countries. 

To select these 150 innovations, we reached out to 50 international experts and asked them to share their recommended justice initiatives from their own geographies. In addition to this, we took into account high impact innovations mentioned in reputed online repositories, donor reports, members of legaltech communities as well as from the cohorts of the HiiL Justice Accelerator. 

Innovative courts and government justice services: an impression

We now shift our attention to innovations in the formal justice sector. In almost every country, new justice services are being developed by courts and governments. The table shows a number of examples. In some cases, organisations champion one or more of these initiatives internationally (see links). HiiL research on this is ongoing and the first results are expected in Q1 2021.

Type of Service
In pilot phase
Dormant
Scaling up
Implemented at scale
Family courts with holistic approach
US
Paraguay
Nicaragua
Community paralegal programs (Namati)
Sierra Leone, Kenya, Myanmar, USA, India, Mozambique
Justices of the peace (Wikipedia)
Australia, India
United Kingdom
Houses of justice
Colombia, France
Employment mediation and tribunals
Sri Lanka,
UK, USA
Mandatory mediation
Germany, Italy
Canada
Switzerland
Problem solving courts (Centre for Justice Innovation)
NL
US, Australia
Ukraine
Land courts
Hongkong, Philippines, USA
Mali
South Africa, Australia
Village courts
Sierra Leone
Bangladesh, India, Rwanda, Uganda
One stop courts combining information, facilitation and adjudication
Canada (BC)
Consumer ombudsman
India
UK, Australia, South Africa
No fault compensation fund personal
New Zealand

Accelerating the Innovations

Since the launch of its Innovating Justice Challenge in 2011, HiiL has come across hundreds of justice innovations from all across the world. Out of them, HiiL has supported 150+ innovations in the Justice Accelerator Programme. This gives an impression of what is happening in the field.

The Justice Accelerator is HiiL’s innovation programme that funds, trains and scales a cohort of justice startups each year.

 

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