Why social justice demands innovation

20 Feb 2026

Today, just like every other working day, Justice Connect staff will help people unfairly dismissed from their job, people facing eviction and homelessness, people experiencing family violence, and people navigating complicated legal systems. We will link community legal centres and community organisations with law firms committed to providing pro bono support in moments of challenge and change. We will continue to thoughtfully harness technology to get people the help they need, faster and easier.

In many ways, today is an ordinary day at Justice Connect.  

And yet, today is also unique. Today, 20 February, is World Day of Social Justice.

Social justice is grounded in the principle that people should be treated fairly and be able to participate fully in society. It is closely connected to the protection and promotion of human rights and to ensuring people can access the essentials that shape their lives, including education, healthcare, employment, housing, social security, and political participation. At its core, social justice is about identifying and removing barriers that prevent people from living with dignity, safety, and opportunity.

Every day in our work, we walk alongside people facing injustice, inequality, and exclusion. We see, every day, what an absence of social justice looks like, and the negative impacts this can have for people, families, and communities.

Late last year, we published our 2028 strategy. In it, we affirmed a vision of a world in which legal support is within everyone’s reach, and clarified our purpose to design and deliver high impact interventions to increase access to legal support and progress social justice.

Social justice is, therefore, a concept of crucial importance to our work: a north star that guides and unites us. 

To us at Justice Connect, our commitment to social justice demands us to innovate.

Innovation to us means:

• Questioning how things are done, coupled with a belief and optimism that we can make things better

• Adopting a willingness to experiment with purpose and intention, while learning and improving through monitoring and evaluation

• Looking ahead to the needs of people seeking help and building systems to step up to this growing demand, while doing so responsibly and shepherded by guardrails and governance

• Resourcing programs that both help individual people in moments of challenge, while advocating for systemic reforms to address inequality, discrimination, and exclusion

• Using our limited resources responsibly and for maximum and sustainable beneficial social impact – for society, for the sector, and for the system

• Partnering with like-minded community legal centres, community organisations, governments, law firms, and others with a shared vision for social justice.

So, while in 2026, we continue our long-standing work providing legal help and social work support to people facing injustice, we have also:

• Continued to train and improve our AI model, including through improving the experience of pro bono lawyers playing our TAG game

• Planned for new digital tools that build upon our AI model to get individuals and community organisations the assistance they need, faster and easier

• Refined our market-leading Pro Bono Portal across multiple international jurisdictions for law firms to maximise ease of use while delivering on operational requirements unique to the profession

• Established our AI Policy and governance structures that build upon years of practical experience and values-led work in partnership with the University of Melbourne

• Helped shape the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s recommendations on Artificial Intelligence in Victoria’s Courts and Tribunals, tabled in Parliament in early February.

For 2026 and beyond, much more work is planned and underway to expand access to justice. While we are excited and driven to deliver on our ambitious strategy to grow our reach and impact through these initiatives, we remain grounded in our values, professional responsibility, and vision.

In a world increasingly affected by uncertainty and change, at Justice Connect one thing is certain: our commitment to social justice has always, and will always, remain steadfast.