Gwen has been with ILAO since its humble beginnings. For our 20th anniversary, we want to celebrate and highlight our one and only Director of Product Development!
Why do you stay at ILAO?
I love the people behind the organization - our staff, our board, all of the legal aid community we get to work with every day. I think the work that we do is important; I think it makes the world a better place and that’s important to me.
Honestly, I’ve never been bored at ILAO - I am always learning something new and growing in my position at the organization and doing new stuff every day. That’s kept me interested.
What do you like most about your current role?
I get to have a hand in just about every aspect of the organization. I get to drive our technology innovation, but I also work closely with our content team and our partnership team to ensure that everything is aligned.
How does that feel to be looked up to as one of the founders and leaders of the national legal aid tech community?
It is an awesome place to be. I am fortunate that ILAO has given me so many opportunities to do cutting edge and cool, innovative work and has allowed me to grow as a technology leader within the legal aid tech community.
What law would you abolish and why?
I would abolish the limitations of discharging of student loans in bankruptcy - huge student loan crisis - putting student loans on the same level as other commercial debt. I think would help a lot of people who are seriously struggling.
How has ILAO changed since you started?
Well, we’re a lot bigger. When I started, we had 5 full time people, including me. And now with our contract development team, we’re at about 20 or more people behind the organization.
We do a lot of technology work - everything on the technology front has changed.
The thing that hasn’t changed - and has been true for the entire 20 years, through staff changes - is our commitment to producing a great product - whether its in our technology, legal content and easy forms, or customer service - live chat, our navigator programs, and how we support our OTIS online intake and triage partners.
Favorite technology of the moment
Twilio Studio - I am having a lot of fun - without having to do any programming - build out our online intake over SMS. It's really fun and easy to use.
Alternative career
I thought I was going to be an accountant; my undergrad degree is in accounting. I went to law school in part because I thought I wanted to do tax. When I was in law school, Congress had just cut LSC funding, eliminated all the national support centers and I got sucked in to the beginnings of building legal aid websites.
