Innovating Through Technology: Ideas from Inside and Outside the Legal Aid Sector
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What does it mean to innovate through technology? How are other organizations doing it? Through a tour of case studies and examples, we’ll inspire you with potential ways to apply new technologies to your own programs. Think of it as a survey of 15 project and examples of innovation from npos, topics will include: Document assembly Apps SMS – Texts Online courses Expert systems Kiosks Volunteer management Video conferencing hardware/software Dashboards & maps. By Idealware Presenters: Laura Quinn, Idealware Kathleen Caldwell, Pine Tree Legal Assistance
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Innovating Through Technology: Ideas from Inside and Outside the Legal Aid Sector
- 1. Using Technology to Enhance Legal Service Delivery: Opportunities for Innovation
- 2. It’s Time for Innovation
- 3. Thingsto Consider What is Innovation?
- 4. Innovation is the Creativity to Use What You Have in a New Way
- 5. Kids Are Natural Innovators
- 6. What Do You Need Before You Innovate?
- 7. Office Infrastructure Start by building a solid foundation: • Up-to-date computers • Shared file server and backup system • Effective email, calendaring, and office software
- 8. Case Management Software Make sure you have a system that can adapt as your organization changes.
- 9. Beyond Basics Establishing a launch pad for innovation.
- 10. Document Assembly The automated creation of legal documents can save a lot of time.
- 11. Online Intake and Triage An online system that allows people to input their information, describe their legal problem, and get connected with resources.
- 12. Mobile Providing services through mobile devices.
- 13. What’s The Next Step?
- 16. CitizenshipWorks.org Mobile App The app helps user inform themselves, get organized, and prepare to become American citizens.
- 17. Self-Paced Modules You can create modules that allow users to watch videos, take tests, or get customized information through branching logic.
- 18. Online Courses Illinois residents can take a course on the foreclosure process at IllinoisLegalAid.org.
- 19. Game Design Gaming can aid learning and help people walk through courtroom scenarios.
- 20. Maine Food Supplement Program Estimator Pinetree used LHI and HotDocs to create a simple expert system
- 21. Expert Systems An information and decision-making tool that can guide users through common legal procedures.
- 22. Expert System Innovation Georgetown Law students were challenged to create an app using Neota Logic to solve a legal problem. Photo: Georgetown Law
- 23. Rechtwijzer: Online Dispute Resolution This Dutch site provides not only legal remedies, but online tools to help parties settle disputes without the need for a lawyer at all
- 25. Live Chat Can Reduce Confusion
- 26. TXT4LIFE: A Text for Help *Attribution: Nicole Wallace http://philanthropy.com/article/Depressed-Teens-Can-Get-Text/137783/ This suicide hotline handles 20 times as many text sessions as they do phone calls—giving teens a familiar avenue to get help.
- 27. Bridge for Youth: Real Time Status App helps Minnesota homeless youth find a bed or food that’s available now.
- 28. MLSA Kiosks for Free Legal Help Montana Legal Services Association provides kiosks in remote courtrooms with access to free online legal help, live chat and forms for those who choose to self-represent--at $2500 per kiosk.
- 29. NYLAG’s Mobile Legal Help Center The bus travels to the five boroughs and Long Island. A designated attorney and driver travels on the bus Other staff and volunteers rotate.
- 30. Connecting Skilled Volunteers Connect volunteers on specific types of templated projects.
- 32. A Revolution in Simple Translation
- 33. Video Conferencing An opportunity to communicate when travel is difficult.
- 34. Hardwired Video Conferencing LawNY recently installed video conferencing equipment in seven offices.
- 35. Software Video Conferencing A low-cost way to make sure foster kids are getting the care they need.
- 36. Analytics
- 37. Dashboards A useful way to share data within your organization.
- 38. Food Desert (USDA): Mapping Public Data Mapping public government data highlights areas where there’s little access to supermarkets.
- 39. Make the Case with Maps Mapping allows you to show how great the need is for legal help and how your work is making a difference.
- 40. Polaris Project: Finding Patterns This large anti-human- trafficking hotline, partnered with Google and Palantir, sorts through masses of data to connect the dots on illegal activity.
- 41. Innovation is a Mindset You can apply your expertise working with clients to come up with big ideas.
Hinweis der Redaktion
- The need for legal aid continues to increase, but limited funding and unstable budget cycles mean that organizations cannot afford to simply hire more attorneys to keep pace. Innovation is needed to reach the clients of tomorrow and technology will be an important part of any innovative solution.
- We talk a lot about innovation, but what does it really mean? Does it mean using the most cutting edge technologies and going boldly where no one has gone before?
- People often think of it as spaceships and robots, but innovation can actually be much more basic. You can innovate simply by using already established technologies in ways that are new to your organization.
- As kids, we do this naturally—we think of all sorts of crazy ways to use the things on hand.
- However, there are basic technologies that you should have in place before you try out new ideas.
- You need a solid foundation of office infrastructure including up-to-date computers, a shared file server and backup system, and office software that includes email and calendaring together.
- You’ll also need a solid case management system that is flexible enough to evolve with you as your organization seeks new opportunities for innovation.
- Once you have the basics in place, a number of technologies can provide a launching pad for innovation and deliver a significant return on investment.
- Document assembly automates the creation of legal documents that are used repeatedly, including such documents as wills, leases, contracts, and letters. Essentially, any document you need to create, no matter how complex, can be assembled using a user-friendly interface and a document assembly tool.
- For intake, applicant clients, navigators, or volunteers can input information into an online system to determine suitability for legal aid representation, collect information about the individual and his or her situation, and provide information to clients. Many organizations are innovating with intake by including other functions, such as triage, and finding new ways to make the questionnaires more user friendly. The ability to integrate your intake with your case management system also opens up opportunities to think differently about the data you collect and how that data can be used to better understand client needs.
- Mobile devices are an increasingly important way to communicate with, and provide services to, clients. Text messaging offers a simple, cost-effective way to provide instant information and stay connected with people who do not have online access. Mobile apps open up whole new opportunities for interaction. Today’s mobile apps can help you provide information and link users to various tools including online intake and video conferencing, but many more innovative approaches remain unexplored.
- But those are the things that pretty much every legal aid organization needs. Let’s take a look at some other innovative technologies or approaches that can benefit legal aid organizations.
- Justice is often represented by balanced scales. But that balance is only possible when both sides have the information they need to best present their case. Self-represented individuals often struggle to understand the legal framework for their argument and communicate their point of view effectively. Technology-enabled learning tools have the potential to balance the information asymmetry most self-represented litigants face.
- Four legal aid organizations recently carried out text message campaigns using a TIG grant and with the help of LawHelp and Pro Bono Net. These campaigns have provided consumer rights information in Georgia, immigration and domestic violence information in New York, juvenile criminal record expungement in Illinois, and drivers license reinstatement in Washington—all by text message. A key factor in the success of a text message information campaign is marketing. Collectively, the organizations worked with Free Range to create templates and customized marketing materials that they used to spread the word about their new services.
- Another example of a successful mobile app comes from CitzenshipWorks. Its app provides access to an immigration legal services directory and information about the naturalization process. It also can help users determine eligibility, fill out customized checklists of documents needed, and provide practice questions for the citizenship exam. The app is currently offered in both English and Spanish.
- Self-paced modules—content users can go back to same-day or months later—are another flexible and user-friendly way to provide information. The Office for Victims of Crime offers Victim Assistance Training Online—video modules like this one that show victim service providers how to effectively assist victims of crime.
- In Illinois, homeowners facing the prospect of foreclosure can use an interactive timeline that teaches them about the foreclosure process and helps them know what to expect at each stage.
- Possibly the most user-friendly approach to self-help tools is the burgeoning gamification movement. Essentially, gamification puts tools in the format of a video game, which helps users move more seamlessly through a process or play out different scenarios. New Haven Legal Assistance is currently partnering with NuLawLab to create a game that will better prepare self-represented litigants for their day in court by putting them in front of a virtual judge to help demystify the process and alleviate anxiety. Games tend to be expensive to do well, however—it’s hard to create something that is realistic enough to be truly useful and still fun.
- This is a 60 sec or so interview that spits out a recommendation of what food programs they’re eligible for. Using HotDocs for it’s branching logic even though they’re not actually creating a doc
- An expert system is more than a self-guided tour through a legal topic. It’s a chance for self-represented litigants to gain increasingly deep knowledge in complex areas of law through videos, handbooks, checklists, practice materials, the creation of legal forms, or a review of legal scenarios. Expert systems can also offer the help of decision-making expertise that emulates what a human expert can provide. Many expert systems are a series of questions that shift as the user provides answers. Using algorithms that consider the nature of the legal issue, the complexity of the issue, and the capacity or sophistication of the user, an expert system can provide the proper information or make a referral.
- One major engine of innovation using expert systems is Georgetown’s Iron Tech Lawyer Competition. Each year, Georgetown Law students are challenged to create an expert system app that can help a user solve a legal problem. 2015’s winning apps included a disaster assistance and recovery tool, free legal resources from LawHelp California, and the ADA2GO app, which helps individuals with disabilities and businesses understand their rights and responsibilities.
- http://rechtwijzer.nl/uitelkaar Model coming based on this in BC Canada http://devblog.mylawbc.com/
- Technology also offers new opportunities for real people to connect with each other, and the ability to serve clients who wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get legal help otherwise.
- Live chat is one easy way to add a human touch to self-service technologies such as online intake and expert systems. Users on your site can simply click and open up a dialogue box where a staff member is ready to answer a question or provide support.
- In 2012, TXT 4 LIFE, a hotline that helps teens cope with suicidal thoughts, handled 3,842 text sessions with 1,985 young people. That’s twenty times as many phone calls the organization receives. The program has been so successful because it gives teens who are desperate another avenue for help. It let’s them reach out the way they prefer to communicate.
- Real time bed, nearest food pantries, by mobile app. Get notified when a bed becomes available. Karen knows these folks. http://ysnmn.org/
- Kiosks are often used for triage or intake, but a self-help kiosk might be the most effective way to reach self-represented litigants in rural states that lack widespread internet access. Montana Legal Services Association shows us one example of how kiosks could work. Placed in three remote locations in Montana, litigants can access a wide range of online resources and live chat with a member of the Montana Legal Services Association staff. Cost: $2,500 per kiosk plus staff time
- The New York Legal Assistance Group took to the road to provide legal help. Using a custom-built bus with video links to the New York City court system, it travels to the five boroughs and Long Island, bringing attorneys and law student volunteers to neighborhoods where free legal help is needed most. Churches, libraries, and civic organizations can schedule the bus to provide legal help on location. At least one attorney is always on the bus, but is accompanied by other staff and volunteers as needed.
- Things as free and easy as Google Translate can make a huge difference – you can now ask your computer to say simple things in virtually any language with a few clicks.
- Legal aid offices spread across the country often have a hard time communicating with each other and reaching clients in all parts of the state. Video conferencing can shrink those distances in ways that benefit both attorneys and clients.
- Legal Assistance of Western New York recently carried out a video conferencing installation project and created a guide, based on its experience, for organizations considering a similar project. The guide looks at whether your organization needs video conferencing, the costs, choosing equipment and vendors, installation and configuration, becoming a Social Security Administration site, and training.
- Another example of video conferencing at work comes from a private foster care and adoption agency. OurKids of Miami-Dade/Monroe uses video conferencing to stay connected with foster kids placed in homes. It partnered with AT&T to provide broadband internet access to foster care families that can then be used for informal video check-ins between official visits.
- Data is another way your organization can be innovative and do more to serve clients.
- Dashboards provide a useful way to display your data so that you can better measure, monitor, and manage your work. Your dashboard can track operational data, program spending and budgets, and program impact—the key is figuring out what is the right amount of data to have available at a glance.
- Graphic Information System (GIS) mapping is a relatively simple way to use data already in your case management system to learn more about the needs in your community. For example, by plotting the zip codes where evictions took place, you can see where residents might be most vulnerable and set up self-help clinics and work with advocacy organizations to help more people stay in their homes.
- Maps also allow you to show in vivid detail where the needs are greatest and argue for increased attention and funding.
- Sarah Jakiel, deputy director of the Polaris Project, which operates one of the largest anti-trafficking hotlines in the nation, said her group is using Palantir’s software to look for patterns that can help structure intervention campaigns and improve victim services. “We have the ability to look at networks like carnivals and sales and agricultural crews,” Jakiel said. “If a recruiter, an illegitimate business or trafficker is popping up a number of different times in the data, that provides us the venue to begin to connect the dots.” http://upstart.bizjournals.com/companies/innovation/2014/03/08/google-palantir-human-trafficking.html?page=2
- Each of these innovative projects and dozens more happening at legal aid offices across the country began with a need and the determination to find a new way to meet that need. You have the tools to be an innovator for legal aid attorneys and clients. Now it’s time to commit the time, attention, and resources to finding and implementing the next big technology breakthrough in legal aid.