Friday, June 24, 2016

To More Efficiently Leverage Civil Legal Aid, New York Providers Eye Online Portals

In New York, online portal projects get ready to launch.

, Legaltech News

The focus on providing, expanding and modernizing civil legal aid in New York comes directly from the top.

"As head of the state's judicial system," Chief Judge of the State of New York Janet DiFiore told the audience at the opening of the 2016 Statewide Civil Legal Aid Technology Conference, "I believe that it is my No. 1 responsibility, and it is indeed my top priority, to make sure that we are working to ensure that the justice system works fairly and efficiently for every New Yorker across the state."


She expressed optimism toward this goal, noting that there is "unprecedented funding in our judicial budget to pay for civil legal aid for the poor," and "the private bar has devoted a number of enormous pro bono hours." But she added, "We know that there is much more work to be done, and we also know the resources that are available to us are far outstripped by the need for civil legal aid.

"That is why technology is so vital in helping us close the justice gap," DiFiore said, adding there is promise in finding ways to use and leverage technology to this cause more effectively.

"We all talk about this multiplier affect in using one lawyer's efforts and expertise to help hundreds of people," she said. "And there is great possibility and promise ahead of us."

The conference's morning plenary showcased a handful of technological projects that aim to revolutionize how civil legal aid is dispersed and accessed through the use of yet-to-be-launched online portals.

Glenn Rawdon, program counsel for technology at Legal Services Corp. (LSC), for example, discussed his company's Statewide Access Portal Project, which was born out of LSC's updated mission statement committing the organization toward creating "some form of effective legal assistance to 100 percent of persons otherwise unable to afford" legal services.

"One of the concepts to do this was the idea of the portal," he said, which will help New Yorkers "get to [legal] assistance, whether it be legal aid full representation, legal advice," or any other form.

Rawdon added that LSC has partnered with Microsoft, which brings to the table "design solutions and actually puts together the technologies," and Pro Bono Net, which, "in working with legal service providers, with the courts, with social service agencies," brings "partnerships and relationships" to the project.

At the heart of the pilot is accessibility for clients and providers. The portal design will focus on ease of use, providing "TurboTax-like dialogues to assess what people's needs are," he said, and resources at every part of the civil legal aid process. "They are not going to have to start one place and go all the way through," Rawdon said.

He added that "the hard part is going to be the governance."

"We are hoping people can come together and put their differences aside to do this," he said, noting that key players include courts, legal aid organizations, state bar associations, libraries, self-help centers, noncourt ADR providers, law schools, administrative law agencies, public representatives, and more. "You can see this is going to be comprehensive."

Organizing a variety of players in one collaborative effort was also a challenge for Anna Hineline, technology coordinator for Legal Assistance of Western New York, a nonprofit law firm providing free legal aid to western New York individuals with civil legal problems. Her organization is currently focused on building the Western New York Consumer Pilot, a portal that aims to bring "32 countries, three legal service providers, three different case management systems, and three different consumer practices" in western New York "into one online gateway," she said. "Our goals of this project is to make sure people don't feel like they aren't being handed around" between providers.

Beyond organization, Hineline saw other challenges in getting significant "buy-in" from providers for the project, understanding the legal landscape of the area, which included the difference in resources between urban and rural areas, and keeping focused on the task at hand.

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