Members of the Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors discussed forming a work group to explore community-based responses to the access-to-justice gap and asked staff to investigate the proposal, with a near-unanimous straw poll of governors supporting further study.

The proposal was introduced during the roundtable by a board member who said the group should collaborate with the state Access to Justice (ATJ) Board and “look around across the nation” for models such as community justice workers and broader public defense systems. "I really want the board to consider forming a work group that collaborates with the access to justice board and others to see how we can move that the conversation forward about addressing access to justice gaps," the speaker said.

Why it matters: several governors framed the justice gap as driven by interlocking civil and criminal issues—housing loss, medical crises and consumer-law problems that then feed into criminal-justice involvement—and said a siloed approach focused only on civil legal aid is insufficient. Alawad Adewale, identified in the roundtable as ATJ board chair, said criminal-justice problems and civil legal needs "are driving each other" and argued for a holistic review that examines programs in other states, including Alaska and New York.

Discussion at the meeting covered scope and next steps rather than adoption of a formal policy. Jordan (a governor who spoke during the roundtable) said he would be willing to chair the proposed task force if created and reported related meetings he had already scheduled with vendors and organizations working on community justice and legal-technology tools. A near-unanimous show of hands followed when participants were asked if they supported exploring Sunita's proposal.

The board did not take a formal binding vote; the outcome recorded at the meeting was a direction to explore the idea further. Governors asked staff to prepare options and to coordinate with the ATJ board and other stakeholders before returning with a proposal.

Other governors used the roundtable to praise past and outgoing leaders and to thank volunteers and staff; those remarks followed the task-force discussion and did not alter the group’s direction on the justice-gap proposal.