Transcript Digital delivery and the legal services to those on low

Law Centre (NI) AGM and seminar
The future of advice
in the digital age
Roger Smith
Co-author of
Face to face legal advice services and their
alternatives: global lessons from the digital revolution
#LCNI2014
Law Centre (NI) AGM: 21 November 2014
Digital delivery and the legal
services to those on low incomes
ROGER SMITH
Basis of assessment
❖
Face to face Legal Services
and their Alternatives,
January 2014:
http://www.strath.ac.uk/media/faculties/has
s/law/cpls/Face_to_Face.pdf
❖
Digital Delivery and
Legal Services to
People on Low Incomes
to be published by Legal
Education Foundation
on 8 December 2014
:(thelef.org)
❖
Visits to the US,
Netherlands and British
Columbia
The internet and access to justice: nine propositions
1.It is the age of Aquarius: innovation is everywhere.
2.Law is national but technology is global: we can learn from other
countries.
3.There is convergence - both in technologies and providers.
4.The future is interactive (Rechtwijzer 1.0) and mobile: advice websites
need to respond.
5.The internet opens the possibility of end to end provision from diagnosis
to resolution (Rechtwijzer 2.0).
6.The internet opens new opportunities for advancing the skills of users.
7.We need to recognise - and deal with - digital exclusion in technical,
cultural, skills abilities.
8.NGOs can have a leading role in development.
9.We need to re-engineer legal aid.
Digital inclusion and exclusion
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Digital exclusion can relate to physical access, lack of skills or cultural
inhibition. It will change over time.
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The growth of mobile adds to the challenge.
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Exclusion more likely to be lack of skills (IT, language, cognitive) than
physical
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Pockets of exclusion will remain in some communities in population elderly, immigrant, for UK those with a disability.
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Research reports 14 per cent of UK users would prefer not to use the
internet (Oxford Internet Survey) though 80 per cent of households have
access.
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Cannot assume in UK more than 50 per cent access in lowest income
groups. Digital needs integration with face to face - both internally and
externally.
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Digital delivery offers the possibility of universal delivery.
The age of Aquarius: diversity and
experiment
A range of examples
A. Private practice
B. Advice Portals
C. Interactive information
D. Parental support - developing skills
E. Online communities
F. Developing avatars
G.Remembering basics - content remains king.
H. Problems for government
Professional Legal Advice Online.
Slater & Gordon Lawyers offers expert legal advice for all your legal matters – on- and off-line.
http://www.advicenow.org.uk/
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Advice from Citizens Advice
Brings you the self-help information you need to
solve your problem
Avatars get real: from A2J to JES
The importance
of the practical
A reminder from
Connecticut. This is
brilliantly practical.
End to end services at the cutting edge : Rechtwijzer 2.0
and BC’s Civil Resolution Tribunal
Very similar approaches – this from Rechtwijzer:
1. Diagnosis and Information (intended to be free);
2. Intake (intended as fee-based);
3. Dialogue between the parties (free);
4. ‘Trialogue’ - an opportunity for online mediation (fee-based);
5. External online review (fee based).
6. Online adjudication if required (fee based also and conceived as part
of the ‘trialogue’);
7 ‘After care’
What are the new frontiers?
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Moving from information to advice
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Incorporating personalised assistance
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Moving from static information to dynamic interaction.
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Learning how best to incorporate video
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Taking a user from information to resolution (and dealing
with the resulting change(s) of paradigm)
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Designing an holistic approach incorporating law, education,
skills and emotion.
Evaluating websites
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Basic requirements: cannot be substantially misleading, major
technical failure, offensive or discriminatory, inadequately protective
of data, lack of transparency of provider or of costs, accessible
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Content - user-oriented; specific, relevant and practical, up to date,
balanced.
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Structure - availability of individualised assistance, good design to
commercial standards, mobile compatible, INTERACTIVE
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Oriented to the resolution of a dispute or problem.
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Functionally integrated with individualised provision.
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Incorporating assistance with relevant skills and understanding.
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The importance of evaluation.
The role of NGOs and
Governments
NGOs need resources but have the flexibility to be creative eg Justice
Education Society in BC.
As a resource, imagination may be as important as money.
Governments have the resources and responsibility for courts and
tribunals but may struggle with flexibility.
At this stage, creativity and competition may be better than
centralisation e.g. British Columbia.
Digital delivery needs flexible face to face support which fits NGO
culture well.
National priorities: an example from the US: Legal
Services Corporation 2013 technology summit
recommendations
1. Creating in each state a unified “legal portal” which, by an automated triage
process, directs persons needing legal assistance to the most appropriate form of
assistance and guides self-represented litigants through the entire legal process
2. Deploying sophisticated document assembly applications to support the
creation of legal documents by service providers and by litigants themselves and
linking the document creation process to the delivery of legal information and
limited scope legal representation
3. Taking advantage of mobile technologies to reach more persons more
effectively
4. Applying business process/analysis to all access-to-justice activities to make
them as efficient as practicable
5. Developing “expert systems” to assist lawyers and other services providers
Implications for
domestic legal aid
• Accept political reality that legal aid cuts will not be restored and that legal aid has to be
reconciled within existing budgets (currently separate) and that technology may help.
• Recognise that legal aid must be maintained as a service to the widest range of users and
not wither on the vine. Accept also that excluding women in family breakup situations has
gone too far: look for digital solutions in terms of support wider than litigation.
• Re-conceive legal aid as an end to end process in which lawyers are a crucial but not sole
- part of a continuum from diagnosis to resolution.
• Encourage private practitioners to meet the ‘latent legal market’ to greatest extent
possible.
• Accept that digital delivery may be the key to providing a wide level of universal service.
• Create an innovation fund with 1 per cent of the budget.
• Incorporate an NGO led digital front end with telephone and face to face support.
• Foster and create leadership and competition for creativity.
• Courts and Tribunals must adapt to more self representation - need self help websites and
experimentation with an end to end online small claims pilot linking NGOs with the court
service.