LEJ trains and mentors lawyers launching or transitioning to practices that address the needs of underserved legal consumers.
Legal Entrepreneurs for Justice (LEJ) is a small business incubator for socially conscious lawyers providing affordable legal solutions to low and middle-income people in Colorado. This target market includes those people who fall into the so-called “justice gap”: individuals who make too much money to qualify for free legal services, but not enough to pay traditional market rates and assume the risk and inherent uncertainty of the traditional legal pricing model, the billable hour. LEJ provides the training, mentoring, resources, and support these lawyers need to establish their own law practices. LEJ lawyers are committed to offering predictable pricing and flexible representation options and leveraging technology and innovation from other industries to increase client engagement and efficiency. LEJ is modeled after the Chicago Bar Foundation Justice Entrepreneurs Project and welcomed its first cohort in June 2019.
The need for LEJ was first identified several years ago. After launching as a 501(c)(3) in July 2018, LEJ became a program of the Colorado Supreme Court in December 2021 and is currently managed by the Colorado Attorney Mentoring Program.
LEJ aims to provide a for-profit solution to improving access to legal services that extends beyond typical legal aid and that provides access to affordable, reliable legal services to people with low and moderate incomes. Increasing the availability of affordable, reliable legal services for these individuals will improve access to justice in Colorado. LEJ’s goal is to expand legal services and solutions to low and middle-income legal consumers by developing new, market-based models of legal service to serve them, while being the basis for sustainable and profitable legal practices.
