The Current Landscape of Law and Justice Innovation

Gram Vaani’s Mobile Vaani programme is creating a federated network of media platforms to share content relevant to the local community, such as localized information on rights and entitlements, local news and feedback on government efforts, as curated by citizen volunteers. Using IVR technology, the platform can be accessed on any basic mobile phone by calling a specified toll-free number. It also allows citizens to contribute information by easily recording a voice message. MV is currently operating 25 separate networks in districts across India in partnership with 150 organisations.

IFF is bridging the gap between the ‘public’ and ‘public policy’ by creating a bottom-up model for digital rights advocacy in India. Their jargon-free and relatable content, filled with pop culture references and humour, has been able to inform and engage the public effectively. SpeechBill.in, their online campaign which attempted to repeal criminal defamation and consolidate civil defamation, generated over 4,000 signatures and led to consultations with Lok Sabha MP Tathagata Satpathy, who filed The Protection of Speech and Reputation Bill, 2016. This model has been replicated by the SaveOurPrivacy campaign to publicly present a draft law for data protection in India.

SpotDraft is arguably the first Indian contract review and management solution of global standard. Their clear understanding of the exact pain points of contract review and management has led to the creation of a highly user-friendly solution with features including bulk contract review, renewals, identification of critical clauses and deviations from standards, the ability to extract data from historical contracts, and an AI-powered native editor. Their understanding of how enterprises work has also led to a product that supports organizational workflows and protocols and makes adoption that much easier.

The Legal Capsule is a contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform for companies to manage all their legal documents on the go. They also have a B2B model to ease the process of digitizing contracts. The product is an end to end solution that makes it easier to create, collaborate, negotiate, e-sign, store and manage agreements and forms all in one place. Among other features, it provides online e-stamp papers, management of recurring payments through an e-NACH system, e-KYC, automated renewal reminders, dedicated legal support and ODR mechanisms for contract needs of all kinds. They have priced themselves in a way as to be accessible to SMEs as well.

Phoenix is a unique offering that promises to make prisons humane. Born from the founder’s deep personal insights into the conditions in jail, Phoenix has digitized critical prison operations while still in keeping with the Jail Manual. Its notable features include a canteen transaction system that is directly linked to online payment systems and gives biometric access to prisoners; an e-custody system to ensure timely and accurate delivery of custody certificates before courts, which would also free up the manpower assigned to this tedious task; and a Court Production Management System that automatically generates production lists, without errors. Phoenix is currently impacting 4 lakh prisoners through full-scale deployment in all prisons in Haryana and pilot projects in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

An empathetic intervention, Project Second Chance works with incarcerated youth to equip them to become change agents. Through a fellowship programme, they come together with young liberal arts graduates to start interventions inside and outside the prison that are sustainable, scalable and systemic in nature. The Second Chance Fellows work full-time in prisons during their 12-month tenure, with a focus on developing educational, livelihood and life skills programmes and facilitating sessions and workshops for youth at risk. There have been over 20 fellows so far, and many of their projects have been incubated by UnLtd India, TFIx, Changelooms, School for Social Entrepreneurs India, Shakti – The Empathy Project, etc.

Lawctopus Law School is a creative alternative to traditional classrooms by creating an online law school: with courses, live lectures, student hangout zones, office hours, career counselling, and even a placement cell. They aim to take a ‘warm’ learning experience through a blended approach, supplementing recorded lectures, quality reading material and live classes for doubt resolution with a team that sees and hears the student (via Whatsapp groups, email reminders, and even phone calls to those struggling with the course). Students can be formally enrolled in whichever law school whilst being assured Lawctopus Law Schools’s quality educational experience. So far, they have already catered to 1200+ students.

IDIA: IDIA is making legal education more accessible to underrepresented, underprivileged and differently-abled students. Their student volunteers have driven IDIA’s agenda of inclusion, by both sensitising and recruiting prospective students, training them for admission, and mentoring them while at law school. Since inception, IDIA has sensitised 38,000 students, trained 450 students for the C.L.A.T. and other law entrance examinations of which 137 passed the entrance exam and 114 secured admissions into top universities. 20.3% of IDIA students are differently abled (visually challenged); and 32.8% of students belong to SC/ST communities. The IDIA community has increasingly become an effective voice for inclusion and quality at India’s law schools.

The Centre for Law and Policy Research is establishing Constitutionofindia.net as a multilingual digital archive of user-friendly information on the Constitution and related documents, thus providing a dynamic way for citizens to learn about and understand the Constitution better. The archive is free, human tagged, open access and easily discoverable, making it an accessible resource on the history, values and text of the Constitution that can be used to further popular knowledge and engagement. The site gets thousands of monthly website views and ranks sixth in the Google search rankings for ‘Constitution of India’. They also organise quizzes, seminars and workshops in partnership with other organisations to enhance constitutional education and literacy, especially among students.

Centre for Policy Research’s LRI employs a range of research tools to understand the applicability, interplay and impact of over 1,000 relevant laws and provide actionable insights. They publish concise, jargon-free research reports to simplify this complex area of knowledge for all. LRI is also launching a comprehensive, interactive website, with open APIs, on the land laws of India. By organising events for relevant stakeholders from academia, policy, government and civil society, LRI is not only helping to create an informed citizenry but is also building pathways for those in the legislature, executive and judiciary to make informed policy decisions.

Building on an interlinked database that integrates multiple sources of information such as cases, laws, news, etc., Legitquest offers one platform for all the research, analytics and even networking needs of legal professionals. Their AI-powered search makes research less time consuming and more efficient, and their analytics tools enable data-driven decisions for the best strategies relating to a case. With thousands of paid subscribers, Legitquest is being used by large numbers of lawyers and students, as well as members of the police and judiciary to gather accurate data towards better prosecution and quality decision-making.

Riverus combines the latest technology with user-centric design to build systems that empower legal professionals to do their work exponentially better. Their Riverus Telescope is a ready reckoner, especially for tax law professionals, generating research and insights from an otherwise complex system. Hundreds of web crawlers download information from various courts, and data science processes extract intelligence. Human editors then use custom technology to efficiently approve or reject this intelligence to ensure that the user receives research that is genuinely useful for their work. The aim is to take this man-machine model and the proven design capabilities to all areas of law in due course.

The FRG’s Bankruptcy Case Database is creating the foundation for empirical research and data-based decision-making in the field of bankruptcy and the performance of commercial tribunals in India. Their aggregate data and case-level data from orders of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), combined with already existing data sets (e.g., from the CMIE Prowess database), can feed into rich analyses of the impact of structural reform as well as the behaviour of debtors and creditors in India. This, in turn, can potentially facilitate further analysis into the characteristics of firms that go bankrupt, the correlation between firm size and time for disposal of cases, etc. FRG is also leveraging their openly published pilot data sets and early findings to strategically engage think-tanks, the NCLT and judges, while also working with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to recommend commensurate capacity building measures for the NCLT.

An early-stage initiative, CPAP is enabling marginalised communities to anchor and drive the process of holding everyday policing procedures accountable. This is done by undertaking data-driven research and strategic litigation to increase cost on the system and create feedback loops. The CPAP team collects data on different policing functions such as detention, arrests and externment, which helps understand and reveal the impact of specific laws on the criminalization of certain communities. They draw data from publicly available sources like FIRs, Arrest Data and Right to Information applications submitted to the state and district crime bureaus.

A comprehensive solution for the otherwise tedious processes of e-signing and e-stamping, Leegality is transforming the way transactions are executed by digitizing the lifecycle of a document. Building upon the framework of the Information Technology Act, Indian Evidence Act and Stamp Acts, it uses a highly automated, end to end digital process, eliminating the need for physical signatures, stamping and related processes like courier/delivery, storage and other physical compliances. Leegality counts among its clients hundreds of organisations, including Federal Bank, HDFC Ltd, Airtel Payments Bank, L&T Financial Services, IndusInd Financial Services, HDB Financial Services and Power Finance Corporation.

Easing legal document management for enterprises, DOQFY is building a user-friendly and secure document automation SaaS platform, with built-in electronic signatures, workflow management and document builder tools. The platform also offers personalised templates and e-stamping services. DOQFY has collaborated with the legal teams of various organisations, including banks, to ensure compliance with local laws while saving over 80% of the time spent on this and over 45% in costs for companies.

LEAD’s strong network of 200 paralegals across Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra provides pre-migration counselling to workers at pre-identified ‘source’ centres of migration, to promote awareness of rights and entitlements and good work practices such as maintaining documentation and attendance diaries. The LEAD team leverages mediation as an effective tool suited to informal work conflicts to settle disputes. Employers tend to participate in these mediation processes as the burden of proof in formal systems is on them and they rarely maintain proper documentation. As of June 2020, LEAD has succeeded in resolving over 9,000 cases through mediation and dispute resolution. Their helpline receives an average of close to 5,000 calls a month, and they have also retrieved wages in favour of workers amounting to over 25 crores.

Creating new roles and a new pedagogy for citizens and college students respectively, ARTAM is introducing a consensual dispute resolution mechanism like mediation to students at the college stage itself. Once introduced to these mechanisms, the hope is that this means of resolving a dispute will become the more natural way for them to settle disputes and they carry that culture forward with them to society at large. These individuals can then go on to set up community mediation centres, especially in economically backward areas, and act as peer mediators to help solve disputes locally and efficiently instead of ending up in the court system. Led and run by students, ARTAM’s training module has been built by known academicians and mediators, and they have trained close to 500 students till now.

LegalKart is building a comprehensive tech-enabled ecosystem where users can get professional legal advice and support via a phone helpline. In a country like India where making a call is the easiest option for a citizen, LegalKart is a simple port of call for those who first seek to understand their legal issue. This is followed up with systems that match the user with an appropriate lawyer for their needs. LegalKart has served over 12,000 users so far and has 10,000+ verified lawyers in 800 cities. 

19,06,657 persons were excluded from the final National Register of Citizens for Assam. Parichay, a collaborative legal aid effort among law schools, trains and facilitates law students to assist lawyers representing NRC-excluded persons at the Foreigners’ Tribunals in the appeals process. Parichay’s student volunteers are supporting lawyers across 8 districts in Assam, and they hope to expand their reach to be able to benefit at least 5,000 excluded people.

Haqdarshak is combining research and technology with a strong service network to advance access to welfare schemes. Their research team has codified over 6,000 central, state, municipal and private welfare schemes and translated them into local languages. Their product is designed to enable any person to determine which scheme or benefits they are eligible for. The information is accessible and is supported by services such as the Haqdarshak app, the Citizen app and the MSME app. Recognising that merely providing access to digital information is not sufficient for most rural citizens, Haqdarshak has also recruited and trained a cadre of women to act as ‘Haqdarshaks’ – agents who help communities become more aware of their rights, process their claims and address grievances at their doorstep in return for a small fee. Their platforms have reached over 3 lakh citizens, facilitating their applications and enabling them to receive their due benefits.

Transerve is a data platform working in a coalition with Tata Trusts and the Odisha government to ensure the allocation of property titles to those living in slum settlements across Odisha. Their approach uses geolocation to pinpoint people’s occupation of certain properties and demarcate their boundaries in highly fluid environments, combining it with primary data gathering to assess people’s claims, double-check the boundaries and collect a wide range of secondary data to support title claims. They are also developing structures and collaborative frameworks to utilise the data and enable different stakeholders to create a pioneering solution. This is a clear use case for how geospatial technology can be used in conjunction with primary sources of data to create property rights for the urban poor. Extending this approach to other states could benefit millions of urban poor.