LSC committee reports Microsoft, Hewlett and Ascendium grants to support grantees

The Legal Services Corporation’s Institutional Advancement Committee was told at its open session that LSC has secured multiple privately funded grants to help grantees adopt technology, analyze civil court data and plan work on record clearing.

Jada Bridal, chief information officer, said, “We received $200,000 that split between, a 100,000 that goes to a company that's gonna help us with training, and adoption, and a $100,000 that goes to other project support, as well as $80,000 in Azure credits and advisory support.” She said LSC will form a small cohort of grantees to pilot responsible adoption of Microsoft Copilot and use lessons learned to scale support across the network.

Holly Stevens, chief data officer, reported that the Hewlett Foundation provided $250,000 to continue the Civil Court Data Initiative (after an earlier $100,000 planning grant). “They have now continued to invest in the Civil Court Data Initiative and turning that initiative into more of a hub for advanced analytics and role based access,” Stevens said, describing investments in data warehousing, integration and an analytics layer to combine grantee and public datasets.

Carly described a $415,000 planning grant from Ascendium Education to study how civil legal aid can reduce barriers caused by criminal and arrest records for post‑secondary education, occupational licensing, employment and economic mobility. “Over the next year, LSC is gonna use this new grant to conduct a national assessment of our grantees’ record clearing activities,” Carly said, adding that a planned deliverable will be an interactive 50‑state opportunity map to inform lawmakers, employers and partners.

Committee members asked about the MacArthur‑funded justice gap study; Stevens said the survey work is underway with NORC/AmeriSpeak, includes oversampling of veterans, Native American populations and other subgroups, and aims for preliminary results late in the year with a release in early spring.

The committee approved the morning’s procedural motions (agenda and minutes) and then voted to move into a closed session to consider nominees to the Leaders Council and Emerging Leaders Council.