A new report by the the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) presents recommendations for the use of legal regulation innovation as a way to address the urgent legal services gap across much of America. The report outlines a series of objectives and findings from discussions with leaders from states considering or implementing regulatory innovation.

The report presents 12 recommendations reflecting stakeholder contributions, program and structure requirements, messaging, and research & data. The following are some of the recommendations included in the report:

• Include ethics attorneys who are open to considering regulatory innovation in regulatory initiatives
• Include at least one, but ideally as many as possible, representatives from the state’s supreme court on any regulatory innovation task force
• Engage community-based organizations and the public from the outset
• Focus initial efforts on education about the problem and why change is needed
• Regulators should collect more data
• Regulators and other leaders should consider how changes to other rules of professional conduct could increase access to affordable legal help

Unlocking Legal Regulation: Lessons Learned and Recommendations for Launching and Sustaining Regulatory Reform by Jessica Bednarz is available online here: https://iaals.du.edu/sites/default/files/documents/publications/ulr_lessons_learned.pdf.