Jason Tashea, the lawyer and former technology reporter for the ABA Journal, has joined an early-stage technology startup devoted to empowering pro se litigants in small claims cases.
Tashea is now product manager at Quest for Justice, a company formed last August with the goal of building an access-to-justice platform to enable self-represented plaintiffs and defendants in small claims cases to represent themselves more effectively and better navigate the system.
Until December, Tashea was a legal affairs and technology staff writer at the ABA Journal, which he joined in 2017. As he left the magazine last month, he published a column, Career Confessions of An Atypical Law School Graduate, in which he described his path from law school to legal technology — and, in particular, to using tech to address the access-to-justice gap.
“There has never been a more exciting moment to create a new path,” he wrote. “Within the wreckage that is the access-to-justice gap, there is opportunity.”
Quest for Justice was founded by Patrick N. Forrest, a lawyer and venture investor who is now the company’s chief strategy officer, and Binh Dang, a technology entrepreneur and investor who is now the company’s president.
The website of Quest for Justice says its platform will have five components:
Case management, enabling litigants to use guided questionnaires to create legal documents and then track the progress of their cases. Case coaching and oversight, ensuring litigants file documents correctly and on time. Tashea said this would not entail legal advice, but rather be more like a legal navigator. Court communication, enabling litigants to get updates and information about their cases through the platform, via an API into the court system. Litigation support marketplace, where litigants will be able to find and employ providers of services such as service-of-process and translation. Legal knowledge
