Transcript Welcome! [lsntap.org]

ED151: Creative Uses of
Technology in Legal Aid
November 6, 2009
•Gwen
Daniels, Illinois Legal Aid Online
•Leah Margulies, Law Help New York
•Kristin Verrill, Atlanta Legal Aid
Illinois Legal Aid Online
Pro Se Guide Me Player
Pro Se Guide Me Builder
Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor Matching System
NPADO / CMS Project
Illinois Legal Aid Online’s
Pro Se Guide Me Player
•
•
•
Single, above the fold module that
encapsulates all the information
someone needs to solve a legal problem
Currently supports both English and
Spanish; additional languages can be
added by changing a file
Forms, Instructions, and Find Legal Help
are tailored to the user’s zip code
Illinois Legal Aid Online’s
Pro Se Guide Me Player
•
•
•
Built on Adobe’s open source Flex
framework with a ColdFusion back-end
and runs on the Flash player; back-end
can be altered to run on any platform
HTML version is available for anyone
who can’t use Flash, including search
engines and people using screen readers
Soon to include a video tab, with
embedded video player and attorney
versions
Illinois Legal Aid Online’s
Pro Se Guide Me Player
Illinois Legal Aid Online’s
Guide Me Builder
•
•
•
•
•
•
Back-end tool to build Guide Me’s that run in the
Guide Me Players
Easy-to-use: No tech skills required
Rich-internet platform allows us to use things like
drag and drop to reorder lists
Fully integrated with ILAO’s content management
system
Front-end is Flex; back-end uses ColdFusion with
MSSQL for storing the Guide Me’s content. Backend can be altered to work on other platforms.
About 500 developer hours, plus a few hundred
hours for usability and system testing
Illinois Legal Aid Online’s
Guide Me Builder
•
Recommendations for
implementation:
• Do user testing on a prototype with
your target users, especially if it is on
the public website or is in anyway a
“different” interface
• Get the people who are going to
have to use the application involved
from the start.
Illinois Legal Aid Online’s
Guide Me Builder
IllinoisProBono.org:
Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor
Matching System
•
•
•
Joint project with the Public Interest
Law Initiative
Allows lawyers, paralegals, and law
students to find mentors
Allows lawyers to find case partners
to act as co-counsel/lead counsel on
cases or to help with research,
translation, or witness interviewing
IllinoisProBono.org:
Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor
Matching System
•
•
Upon submitting the request, matches
are displayed immediately, and the user
can contact one via the system.
The system sends an email to the match,
who can then either accept or decline
the match.
IllinoisProBono.org:
Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor
Matching System
•
Project started:
• August 1, 2009
•
Target launch date:
• May 1, 2010
•
Estimated costs:
• 20K-30K
• including both in-house and outside
developers
IllinoisProBono.org:
Pro Bono Case Pairing and
Mentor Matching System
•
Recommendations for similar projects:
• Create mockups and run through them with
anyone who’s buy-in is important
• User-test a prototype before building
• Have a marketing plan to promote the tool;
this system is going to be largely dependent
on how many mentors and case partners we
can get signed up
Populating HotDocs on NPADO
with data from a CMS

Who?
◦ ILAO and Pro Bono Net

What?
◦ TIG Grant to populate forms on NPADO
with data from LegalServer, as implemented in
the 3 Illinois LSC-funded programs

When?
◦ Target launch date: June 2010
Populating HotDocs on NPADO
with data from a CMS

How it works:
◦ Legal Server will pull in…
 a feed of available templates
 feeds of individual fields in specific templates,
◦ THEN…match the fields to their internal
fields (one time mapping).

Users then will be able to…
 select a template from within LegalServer
 pre-fill the interview on NPADO with any data that
exists in LegalServer that has been mapped to the
template.
LawHelp.org/NY
www.LawHelp.org/NY
www.ayudalegalny.org
Multilingual LiveHelp
Real time “chat” facility to lead lowincome users to legal help they need.
 TIG grant – 18 month time frame
 Recruited Equal Justice Work –
Americorps Legal Fellow to lead effort
 Will be online in mid-late December
2009
 Staffed by pro bono law students and
other volunteers (English) and
LawHelp/PBN staff for Spanish initially

Search Engine Optimization and Marketing
TIG grant beginning January 2010
 Combining natural search strategies (eg
key word, linking, etc.) with paid
marketing
 Piloting SEOM in Spanish re:
www.ayudalegalny.org
 Developing models for replication and
lessons learned for statewide website
community: dashboard and toolkit

Enhancing Language Access Rights Resources

Using “workaround” to add multilingual
organization listings for Korean, Chinese and
Russian communities in NYC.

Range of improvements on Spanish mirror site,
including Spanish url, adding more than 100 org
descriptions in Spanish, reorganizing intake info
to ensure translation into Spanish, etc.
Enhancing Language Access Rights Resources

Adding plain language language access rights
instructions for NYC agencies:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Dept. of Homeless Services,
ACS,
HRA,
Family Justice Center,
Dept. of Ed in English, and translated into Chinese,
Spanish, Russian, Italian and Korean
 **Recruited Pro Bono attorneys to implement
Enhancing Language Access Rights Resources

Translated 6 existing key resources :
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦

Russian,
Chinese,
Spanish and
Korean.
**Recruited Pro Bono law firm to implement.
And more . . .
Spanish A2J Author TIG Project
Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Inc.
Spanish Family Violence Petition
Template Selection
High need legal issue for target
population
 High likelihood of success

◦ Presiding matters
◦ Ex parte matters
Module Logic

Informing Petitioners
◦ Information
◦ Legal options

Limiting scope of Petitioners
◦ Jurisdiction/venue
◦ Complicating factors
◦ Untimely petitions
A2J Author Functionality in Spanish

A2J navigation buttons translated
◦ Spanish option in Interview tab
Law Help Interactive navigation screens
will be translated soon.
 What about text responses??

Bob’s Computation to the Rescue!
SAMPLE TEXT:
Specifically Respondent «SP Violence CO»«Violence dummy MC» Respondent
used the following weapons during this incident: «Weapon CO»«Weapon dummy
MC». The following parts of Petitioner’s body were injured during the incident:
«Injury CO»«Injury dummy MC» Petitioner sustained the following injuries during
the incident: «Injury type CO»«Injury type dummy MC» The following items of
property were damaged during the incident: «SP Property damage CO»«Property
damaged dummy MC»
SAMPLE COMPUTATION THAT MAKES IT WORK:
""
IF ANSWERED (Slapped TF) AND Slapped TF
RESULT + "se abofeteó al Demandante|"
END IF
IF ANSWERED (Pushed TF) AND Pushed TF
RESULT + "se empujó al Demandante|"
END IF
SET Violence dummy MC TO RESULT
Checkbox (All that apply)
Radio Button (Select only one)
Just In Case
Optional Addendum to Petition in
Native Language

Translation Issues
Staff v. outside translation
 Print script for audio from reports tab
 Don’t forget:

◦
◦
◦
◦

Buttons,
Steps,
TF and
MC options
Consider leaving A2J question names in
English
HotDocs Template

Spanish Variable Names
◦ SP child/children CO
◦ SP Respondent eye color MC

Assemble both Spanish and English
Versions
QUESTIONS?
Contact:
Kristin Nelson Verrill
Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Inc.
404-614-3934
[email protected]
Don’t forget to complete our survey 
THANK YOU
Gwen Daniels
Illinois Legal Aid Online
[email protected]
Leah Margulies
City Bar Justice Center
[email protected]
Kristin Verrill
Atlanta Legal Aid
[email protected]