2026 MIE National Conference for Legal Aid Managers

This session will provide best practices and lessons learned regarding how to partner authentically with clients in media, advocacy, and even individual representation cases. Topics will include: how to ensure consent and avoid coercion, how to balance a client's real experiences with what you think your audience wants to hear, how to prepare clients to feel confident and comfortable even in sterile or hostile spaces, understanding the role trauma may play, equipping staff to have the time and skill to do this work well, and developing organizational policies to support this work.

Today's legal aid supervisors face a wide range of challenges. Alongside supporting diverse teams and managing performance and accountability, they are adapting to emerging technologies like AI, navigating complex union environments, and working to strengthen engagement and retention amid ongoing uncertainty and change. The need for Trauma-Informed Leadership (TIL) has never been greater. In this session, participants will be introduced to the five Principles of Trauma-Informed Leadership—a practical framework for preventing and addressing common supervision challenges in the workplace. Leaders will learn to recognize issues such as conflict, resistance, and disengagement through a trauma-informed lens and explore how to apply the five principles to real-world management situations. Participants will leave with practical strategies to build trust, strengthen engagement, and foster an inclusive, high-performing workplace, even in today's challenging environment.

This session explores how intentional onboarding directly impacts employee retention, engagement, and workplace culture. Participants will analyze why effective onboarding matters, identify common onboarding failures, and practice strategies that improve employee connection and long-term success.
The seminar combines discussion, interactive activities, reflection, and collaborative problem-solving to keep participants actively engaged throughout the session.

This session will provide tips and strategies for navigating major changes, both positive and negative, across various levels of staff. Best practices and solutions will be discussed in the context of varying organizational size, as well as in the context of LSC-funded vs. non-LSC-funded organizations. The session will examine common scenarios such as strategic plan design and implementation; staffing reductions; and engaging in cross-organizational collaboratives. Opportunities for small group brainstorming and scenario planning will be provided.

As younger generations enter the workforce, legal aid leaders are tasked with developing skilled, resilient attorneys in an increasingly digital environment shaped by virtual courts, electronic communication, and remote advocacy. Meeting the demands of this new landscape requires leaders to rethink how they train, supervise, and support early-career attorneys. This session explores the performance management and wellness challenges managers face when developing new legal aid attorneys and offers practical strategies for assessing, coaching, and strengthening the skills needed to help them become—and remain—empathetic, effective, and human-centered advocates in a digital world.

Cross-team collaboration on shared grant deliverables is one of the most practical ways to address the growing need to deliver equal or greater client and community impact with fewer resources. LAFLA managing attorneys will share their strategies and practical tools used for shared grant supervision, staff teamwork, and cross-team management.

CGLA leaders would present on how their legal practice model has evolved over time to be more rooted in and partnering with impacted community leaders. CGLA's integrated advocacy approach to our holistic legal aid with social work support, and our systemic reform efforts, are responsive to community needs, and led by community members. Our Leadership Council, active over 10 years, of former clients and others with systemic experience, help inform our advocacy, and or design and lead campaigns, and help refine our legal practice areas. With their help, we have helped pass more than 16 laws that removed barriers for our clients to housing, employment, and family connection. Once the laws are passed, we help implement the changes and ensure our future clients benefit from them. Our Leadership Council members also aid in our community outreach, education, and organizing efforts, ensuring the impacted communities we work with are aware of their legal rights and how to access them.

Legal aid managers are increasingly responsible for supervising staff who use artificial intelligence tools—often without formal training in AI or technology. Yet regardless of how technology evolves, managers remain responsible for quality, ethics, client service, and organizational accountability.

Grounded in the conference theme, "Rooted in Resilience: Community-Centered Management Strategies," this session explores how leaders can adapt to technological change while remaining focused on mission-driven advocacy and client trust.

Using the framework of a coach "calling the plays," participants will discuss how managers can establish expectations, supervise AI-assisted work, manage risk, and support innovation without becoming technical experts themselves.

Topics include:

Supervising staff use of AI tools
Maintaining quality control and accountability
Addressing confidentiality and ethical concerns
Managing billing, workflow, and performance issues
Preventing over-reliance on AI while preserving professional judgment

Through facilitated discussion, real-world management scenarios, and peer learning, participants will identify practical strategies for integrating AI responsibly while ensuring technology strengthens—not replaces—high-quality, client-centered legal services.

Word count: approximately 170–180 words.

Managing up is an essential leadership skill that helps you get what you need to do your work well, advocate effectively for yourself and your team, and build a productive working relationship with your manager and other organizational leaders. This interactive session will introduce a practical set of skills and approaches that participants can apply to manage up more effectively.

Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) can be an important supervisory tool in a manager’s toolbelt to help a struggling staff member, but they are often not used as frequently or effectively as they should be. In this session, we explore what a PIP is, when it should be used, and best practices for drafting not only the PIP itself, but progress reports during the period of the PIP. You will hear from both a local manager and an HR representative on best practices, potential downfalls, and other key considerations to keep in mind when considering and implementing a PIP. We will use real life examples to illustrate the difference between a successful and unsuccessful PIP and discuss how to work in collaboration with struggling staff members to help them succeed–during the period of the PIP itself and long after it’s ended.

Legal aid managers make decisions every day—some small and immediate, others shaping programs, staffing, and long-term strategy. In an environment of complex community need and limited resources, data can be a powerful tool to support those decisions. But to be effective, data must be used in ways that remain grounded in people: clients, advocates, and communities.
This session explores how managers can use data to inform both day-to-day decisions and larger organizational choices while maintaining a relational, community-centered approach. Drawing on Cleveland Legal Aid’s Wealth Building Program, participants will learn how intake trends, client feedback, and a community needs assessment revealed widespread loss of generational wealth—and how those insights helped create a new practice area, including decisions about outreach, staffing, and service delivery.

The session will also examine how case data, outcomes, and workload patterns can inform supervision, resource allocation, and performance management. Participants will learn to identify the most useful data points for different decisions, understand the limits of what data can show, and integrate quantitative and qualitative insights into their management approach. Consistent with a people-centered framework, the session will highlight strategies for sharing and interpreting data transparently, incorporating staff perspectives, and using data to strengthen trust, collaboration, and decision-making.

The client communities that we represent have been historically disinvested in, and are currently being stripped of their rights, power and dignity. As we develop our internal strategic plans, implement policies and make decisions- how are we intentionally creating space for the community input that is so mission connected? This session will include the perspective of 3 community members in the Baltimore region who have fully woven their perspectives into the routine decision making of client programming at Community Law Center, and present a framework for implementing this model of decision making in your own programs.