Ep 228: The Law Students Working to End Racism in the Legal System

12/04/23 • 44 min

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Each year for the past three years, the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship has awarded fellowships to promising law students to participate in research projects related to eliminating racism in the legal system. This year, 15 students received fellowships of $10,000 each to spend nine months working in teams to research one of five “cluster projects” that the fellowship program targeted for the potential to make a meaningful impact.

The students – all from law schools that are members of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Law School Consortium – recently published the findings of their research in the publication, Advancing and Impacting Equity in the Legal System, and on today’s LawNext, we are joined by two of those students to share more details about their work:

Whitney Triplet, who is in her final semester at Southern University Law Center.
Paul Campbell, a part-time student in his fourth year at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.

Also joining the show today is Adonica Black, director of global diversity and inclusion at LexisNexis, who helped coordinate the fellowship program.

In previous episodes of this podcast, we interviewed students who took part in this program in 2021 and 2022. Here are those episodes:

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

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Whitney Triplet, who is in her final semester at Southern University Law Center.
Paul Campbell, a part-time student in his fourth year at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.

Also joining the show today is Adonica Black, director of global diversity and inclusion at LexisNexis, who helped coordinate the fellowship program.

In previous episodes of this podcast, we interviewed students who took part in this program in 2021 and 2022. Here are those episodes:

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
TranscriptPad, an easy-to-use app to review, search, and annotate transcripts.
CARET serves over 10,000 firms with practice management and document automation technology to enable savvy professionals to refocus their expertise on what truly matters.

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Previous Episode

Ep 227: Erika Harold, Executive Director, Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism

On this episode of LawNext: An interview recorded live with Erika Harold, executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, an organization charged with working to enhance civility and professionalism and to eliminate bias within the legal profession.

A former litigator, Harold was named executive director in April 2022, to succeed retiring executive director Jayne Reardon, who has also been a guest on this podcast. A nationally recognized advocate of bullying prevention efforts, Harold led the commission this summer in launching a statewide initiative to assess the prevalence and impact of bullying in the legal profession and recommend best practices for preventing it.

Erika is also a former Miss America – the sixth Black woman ever to hold that title – and, as you’ll hear, she entered that competition to help fund her education at Harvard Law School, from which she graduated debt free. In 2014, she ran in the Republican primary for Congress to represent Illinois's 13th congressional district. In 2018, she was the Republican candidate for Illinois attorney general.

LawNext host Bob Ambrogi had the opportunity to sit down live with Harold to record this conversation during the Clio Cloud Conference in Nashville in October.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
TrialPad, an easy-to-use app to organize, annotate, and present evidence
CARET serves over 10,000 firms with practice management and document automation technology to enable savvy professionals to refocus their expertise on what truly matters.

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Next Episode

Ep 229: AffiniPay CEO Dru Armstrong on the Intersection of Fintech, Legal Tech and AI

Dru Armstrong was named CEO of AffiniPay, the parent company of LawPay, in July 2021. Less than a year later, AffiniPay shook up the legal tech landscape by acquiring MyCase, one of the leading law practice management platforms, in a deal that also included four other practice management products: CASEPeer for personal injury firms, Docketwise for immigration practices, Soluno for billing and accounting (which it recently sold), and Woodpecker for document automation.

One reason that deal was so notable was that, until then, LawPay had been the legal tech equivalent of Switzerland – a neutral integration partner with virtually every practice management platform out there. But in acquiring one of the major players in the market, that legal tech Switzerland seemed to suddenly lose its neutrality.

Now, two and a half years into the job as Affinipay CEO, Armstrong is our guest on this episode of LawNext to discuss that acquisition, where the company is today, and why the marriage of fintech and legal tech matters to legal practitioners. She also shares her plans for the company’s future, including how it will incorporate generative AI across its various products.

Armstrong and host Bob Ambrogi spoke live in Miami at the TLTF Summit, a conference produced by the Legal Tech Fund, a VC fund focused on legal tech, where she spoke on a panel on the intersection of fintech and legal tech. She was previously on this podcast in June 2022, at the time the MyCase acquisition was announced, and was also on our Legaltech Week podcast.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
DocReviewPad, the easy-to-use app to review, organize issue code, and produce documents
CARET serves over 10,000 firms with practice management and document automation technology to enable savvy professionals to refocus their expertise on what truly matters.