The Center of Excellence in Advocacy at Stetson University College of Law has developed a free online advocacy resource center for nonprofit and government lawyers, which provides excellent online trainings (video and slides) on pretrial, trial and appellate advocacy, as well as guest lectures and materials from conferences on topics related to trial advocacy. -M [Thanks, Mike!]
The National Center for State Courts just released its 20th Anniversary Edition of Future Trends in State Courts, which includes an article on online document assembly by Kate Bladow and Claudia Johnson, as well as an article by Richard Zorza on a judicial curriculum and leadership package developed by the Self Represented Litigation Network. Other topics in this edition that may be of interest include website disability access, language access, cultural competency and several articles on court technology. -M
The last time that I wrote about Common Craft I suggested that they start creating materials on "evictions, name changes, and orders of protection." Perhaps they saw that post and took my advice, because their most recent video is about phishing, a topic that states are beginning to cover on their public legal information websites. For example, check out the LawHelp/NY site, which has an entire section on Internet Fraud and includes a feed from Internet Crime Complaint Center that lists the latest Internet scams. - K
Every year Microsoft hosts the Professional Developers Conference, a huge attraction for developers and architects who want to know where the Microsoft platform is headed. Typically this is the conference where they announce major changes like this year's demonstration of Windows 7. However, the conference registration alone runs around $2,500, which means that most legal aid techies won't be attending.
Fortunately Microsoft has recorded many of the sessions and made them available online, so that you can keep up with what is happening in the industry from the comfort of your office. Session topics include Visual C++, C#, creating secure SQL Server applications, how Silverlight works with Python, and more. - K
Many of the 51 million people who have a disability don't vote. In fact, only 21 percent do. Some don't vote because they are busy, they forget, or they think that it doesn't matter - reasons why anyone might not vote. But people with disabilities can also be deterred by the fact that many polling places are inaccessible. Advocacy organizations have stepped up to ensure that this population has the right to vote, both in theory and in practice. Check out voting resources available from the National Disability Rights Network, the United Cerebral Palsy's Don't Block My Vote campaign, and the Center for an Accessible Society. Also, the Minnesota Disability Law Center put together a great video that explains why it is especially important for people who have a disability to vote. If you or someone you know has a problem voting, you can contact Election Protection ... and you can even use Twitter to report your problem! - K
Texas legal aid organizations and the Houston Bar Association are using LiveHelp to assist Texans affected by Hurricane Ike in obtaining free legal information:
The new service ... is available now and enables Hurricane Ike victims to conduct a live online chat with attorneys recruited by the Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program. Attorneys will answer questions and also refer those seeking help to legal resources specific to FEMA appeals and other disaster-related issues.
Funding for this project was provided by the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. The LiveHelp project was funded by the Legal Services Corporation and developed by Pro Bono Net. For more information about this project, read the full press release here. For more information about LiveHelp, contact Liz Keith (lkeith at probono.net). -M
On October 13, 2008, I attended BlogHer DC: The Reach Out Tour. During that day, I tried my hand at live blogging and live tweeting (i.e. blogging and tweeting while the event happens). It was an interesting experience, and to help those who are considering live blogging or tweeting other events, I thought that I would share a few thoughts.
Live Blogging
Beth Kanter wrote that "live blogging takes a certain chutzpah and fearlessness." She's right. When you are live blogging, you can't stop to be concerned about every detail of grammar and spelling. Your typing and thoughts won't be perfect, but you've just got to get over it. You can always go back and clean your post up after the session. And for me, it's much easier to clean up a rough post than write a post from scratch. When I wait, there's a good chance I'll never write up the post.
I was a little worried that live blogging would be a distraction or that I'd miss parts of the presentation; however, instead of being distracted, I had to pay attention, synthesize the information, and explain it immediately. I was forced to stay engaged, which I hope will mean that I remember the key points better. And if I don't, I have better than normal notes that I can review. (I really wish that I would have taken up live blogging during college! )
Live Tweeting
Live tweeting is much easier than live blogging. It's a lot like taking notes, except that you are sharing them with other people. People can respond and ask you questions, whether they are at the conference or not. For people who are at the conference, this can be an amazing tool. Panelists are able to gauge the audience's interest level as well as take questions, and audience members can have their own backchannel conversations about the topic. (Beth Kanter and Jeremiah Owyang both have posts on how a backchannel can change a session.) Live tweeting is also a great way to include people who aren't at the conference. They are able to eavesdrop on the session and get answers to their questions. Participation and ideas aren't just limited to the select people who were chosen or could afford to attend in person.
I had a good experience live blogging and tweeting at BlogHer. It made me really wish that the legal aid and pro bono communities would integrate these communication streams into their conferences. The first step? Make Internet access available in the conference rooms. - K
On October 31, 2008 at 11 am Pacific/2pm Eastern, I'll be discussing how the Immigration Advocates Network is using online media and social networking tools to engage advocates and increase communication and coordination in the immigrants' rights sector for a LSNTAP training on Creative Uses of Technology in Poverty Law. Other topics for this session include:
To register for this free webinar, click here. Hope to see you there! -M
The National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel just published its inaugural quarterly newsletter, Civil Right to Counsel Update, which provides updates their work and information about advocacy and research related to a civil right to counsel (a.k.a. "Civil Gideon"). To subscribe, go to their website and enter your email in the subscription box on the lower left corner of the page, then fill out the form. Their October 2008 issue is available here. -M
To finish off my week of finance-related technology posts, I'm highlighting a free IRS webinar on November 4, 2008 to help nonprofits prepare to file the new Form 990. For those who need it, continuing education credits are available. You can register here. - K
The folks at Boing Boing have teamed up with Safari Books Online (a new Boing Boing sponsor) to offer one of three O'Reilly tech titles free for 30 days:
Note: Accessing your free book requires that you sign up for a Safari Books Online account. -M
Over the last few weeks I've been experimenting with a great new Firefox add-on called Jureeka!, which looks for legal citations on web pages and automatically turns them into hyperlinks that lead to a free version of the cited source. Developed by Michael Poulshock, the Jureeka! add-on presents a toolbar that lets users search for materials by citation, a button that looks for HTML versions of PDF pages, and (most recently) a feature that lets users create tags for legal sources found on the web. While not without its stray links (i.e. it treats the word "undocumented" as a "UN Document"), it's surprisingly accurate and very useful. You can download it directly from the Mozilla site here. -M
For those of you who are equipped with iPhones, iPod Touch, or Safari/Chrome browsers, The Law Pod provides a great set of web apps for lawyers, including the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence and U.S. Constitution. -M
Today's headlines are scary, and nonprofits are feeling the financial crunch. If you are looking for resources to help you plan for the upcoming year, go to the Nonprofits Assistance Fund's website. This organization works with nonprofits to help them make sound financial decisions. In fact, check out their latest blog post, which talks about steps to take as you are budgeting for the upcoming year. - K
Accountants, you are dedicated to seeing that we legal aid and pro bono program staff get paid on time. But often, all you get from us are missing receipts, late expense reports, and improperly filled-in paperwork. In fact, even when it comes to technology, we forget to cover tools that you can use to make your job easier. But today, technola is making an effort to change that.
Bankrate.com, a great source for financial calculators, also has a tool to help you find out how stable your bank is: Safe & Sound. Not only does it give you a star-based rating for the bank, it also links to financial reports and the bank's memorandum. This way, you'll be able to see if your bank has any problems and maybe get a better night's sleep.
Unfortunately, those other problems that I mentioned above--well, technola hasn't found the technology to make them go away. Promise to keep paying us anyway? - K
On October 30, 2008, the Coalition on Human Needs is offering a live webcast on the current crisis in the economy and in housing, and what Congress and a new Administration may do about it. Presenters include Jared Bernstein (Economic Policy Institute), Barry Zigas (Consumer Federation of America), and Deborah Weinstein (Coalition on Human Needs). For more information, visit the Coalition on Human Needs website. To register, click here. -M
The Pew Internet and American Life Project has just published a new report called "Networked Families":
A national survey has found that households with a married couple and minor children are more likely than other household types -- such as single adults, homes with unrelated adults, or couples without children to have cell phones and use the internet. The survey shows that these high rates of technology ownership affect family life. In particular, cell phones allow family members to stay more regularly in touch even when they are not physically together. Moreover, many members of married-with-children households view material online together.
View the full report here. Last month Pew published a related report called "Networked Workers" that may also be of interest. -M
Unless you've been holed up for the past several months, you've heard that the health of the economy has taken a turn for the worse. It's a complicated situation that This American Life has done a great job of explaining in a couple of segments: The Giant Pool of Money, which we previously mentioned, and Another Frightening Show About the Economy.
For low-income households, this has made a bad situation worse. Renters are being evicted as their landlord's properties are foreclosed on, homeowners are falling prey to foreclosure scams, and tent cities are growing as the rate of homelessness increases.
Even while facing their own financial challenges (news about Indiana, Minnesota, and New Jersey), the legal aid and pro bono communities are stepping up to provide additional assistance. Nationally, several pro bono programs are organizing foreclosure projects. In Minnesota, ProJusticeMN.org launched a website specifically for these advocates that includes sample court documents, statutes, and practice aids. (See their e-newsletter story about the project.) Additionally, programs are making more legal information available online. For example, Illinois Legal Aid Online has created several foreclosure videos, including Mortgage Foreclosure Overview, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid has an attorney who is blogging about foreclosure issues at ForeclosureBuzz.org, and in California, ForeclosureInfoCA.org provides legal information on foreclosure for the public. And these are not the only efforts. For a complete list of activities, check out the list on LSNTAP.org. - K
On Tuesday, October 21, 2008, Grassroots.org is hosting a free webinar on the Grassroots.org Toolbox. This session will offer an introduction to the free tools and services offered by Grassroots.org to enhance your nonprofit's web presence. Learn more and register to attend this webinar here. -M
I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who joined us (and thousands of others) in our day-long discussion of poverty for Blog Action Day, and to urge you to take a moment to meditate on some of the responses posted by stellar advocates in the legal aid community who have taken seriously the idea that technology has the power to transform the lives of our clients, whether by providing staff with the tools that they need to be effective advocates or developing and implementing innovative technology to increase access to justice.
The responses that we received were inspiring: Claudia Johnson reminds us that "[p]overty can happen to anyone for any reason, sometimes by willful or accidental random acts," and urges us to "find solutions that lift all of us based on love and wisdom" and "use every tool at our disposal to banish it." Molly French shares her experience living for a week on a food stamp budget and wonders what it would be like if she had no one to fall back on during hard times to help her through. Tony White challenges us to keep things real and challenge ourselves on a daily basis, to think globally and act from our hearts. And Madhu Lakshmanan provides eloquent insight based on her experience growing up in poverty in India, and challenges us to "step out of that numerical aggregated cocoon and talk to real people and their problems." Finally, Liz Keith shares the story of the story of the Grameen Bank, a microcredit program that started in Bangladesh in 1970s, as an example of a simple, grass-roots innovation that overturned conventional wisdom.
A couple of other reflections on poverty from the perspective of legal aid and public interest advocates include an insightful post on the Shriver Center's Blog, Step Forward, by the Center's president, John Bouman. Another excellent post was written by Robin Wheeler on her SC Access to Justice Blog. I hope that, in addition to reading the responses on technola, you'll also take some time to read these contributions to the dialog. While poverty can't be eradicated in a day, the fact that so many took a few minutes to read, write and reflect on poverty is a real accomplishment, and yet another step towards understanding the dynamics of poverty and potential solutions to this complex challenge. -M
Today is Blog Action Day, and technola is one of over 9,000 12,800 blogs taking part in a global conversation about poverty. We want to hear what folks in our community have to say! Share your ideas, reflections, stories and favorite quotes on poverty in the comments below to take part in this critical discussion. - M & K
The October 2008 edition of First Monday includes an interesting article entitled "Reasons for the non-adoption of OpenOffice.org in a data-intensive public administration" by Philip Huysmans, Kris Ven and Jan Verelst:
It appears that although OpenOffice.org can be a viable alternative for the average organization, its functionality may not suffice for advanced users ... Based upon our results, it would appear that the increasing standardization of document formats, and the support of the ODF format -- and OpenOffice.org -- by third party vendors will be important in order for OpenOffice.org to become a viable solution in advanced environments.
First Monday has also launched a new podcast called Openness 2.0, a "five-part ongoing series brought to you by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the University of Illinois at Chicago Libraries. In Part 1: The State of Openness, Sandra Braman, Mary Case, and Steve Jones breakdown the current state of openness in policy, culture and academics." -M
Charlene Prince Birkeland of Yahoo spoke during lunch at BlogHer. She mentioned some great tips for increasing your blog's traffic, which I've summarized here.
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Your readers are going to find your blog in a lot of ways - search engines, social media, statistics reports, and so on. You need to actively make certain that readers are engaged, and not turned off, by your site. You can do this in several ways.
While each of these areas can take a lot of thought, planning, and time, you can make the process as simple as you want to or have time for. And don't obsess. Search engine optimization isn't the end goal. It's just one way to make your goal happen. - K
Today, I'm at the BlogHer DC conference. After a bit of technical trouble, I'm online and will be attempting some live blogging later this afternoon, but if you just want to keep an eye on the real-time highlights, keep an eye on me at Twitter. - K
In October and November, the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP is offering a free webinar series on "Understanding Census Bureau Data on Language and English-Speaking Proficiency." The webinars will cover key Census concepts as well as finding language-related data and will be led by Census Bureau experts.
The webinars will be held on October 30, November 6, November 13, and November 20 at 2:00 pm Eastern; however, the sessions will be recorded and posted online for reference. To sign up, email CRT.LEP@usdoj.gov with the subject line "Census Webinar" by Tuesday, October 21, 2008 and provide your name, phone number, email address, agency or organization affiliation, and whether you require access to the captioned broadcast or a copy of the presentations and web links for use with a screen reader. - K
The State Bar of California and the Public Interest Clearinghouse (PIC) have just launched a new website that offers mortgage foreclosure information for the public. Funded by the California Bar Foundation, the site provides information for both homeowners and renters, including Spanish language resources. An article in today's Sacramento Business Journal offers more details. -M
The Star-Ledger reported today that Legal Services of New Jersey has launched a new website for pro bono attorneys:
The site has two major purposes: to connect attorneys with non-profit groups that service low-income residents, and to provide pro bono attorneys with support to handle the new cases, said Anuradha Gurnani, the agency's pro bono coordinator.
-M
The Northwest Justice Project just announced new online interactive court forms for pro se users to file a divorce petition with no minor children of the marriage. Future forms available on WashingtonLawHelp.org will include interviews for finishing your divorce, a domestic violence protection order and a demand letter for return of a rental security deposit. This work is funded by a grant from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and the Washington Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). They use A2J Author, developed by the Center for Access to Justice & Technology (CAJT) at Chicago-Kent College of Law and the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), LexisNexis's HotDocs Professional, and the LSC-funded national document assembly server (NPADO), a project of Pro Bono Net. -M
Today, Kojo Nnamdi, a radio host at WAMU in Washington, DC, has a segment on access to justice in DC with Peter Edelman, the Chair of the DC Access to Justice Commission. You can listen to it live online at noon Eastern or check out a recorded version later on their website. - K
I hope that all of you take a few minutes each week to follow Robert Ambrogi's LawSites blog, in which case you'll already know that FindLaw has introduced RSS feeds for 23 courts and 16 practice areas, including areas of interest to legal aid and public interest advocates such as immigration, family law, bankruptcy, constitutional law, environmental law, and labor and employment law. (Note: It's free, but a FindLaw account is required to view the cases from these feeds.) If you don't happen to follow LawSites, just add this RSS feed to your nearest reader. -M
Thanks to Periscope Gadget, you can now integrate Basecamp with your iGoogle homepage. More background on their blog here and a few screencasts here. -M
Breakthrough, a human rights organization based in New York and the folks behind ICED -- I Can End Deportation (which we featured here), recently launched Homeland Guantanamos, an online game that highlights the deplorable conditions that immigrants face in detention. Other project partners include CAIR Coalition, Stop Prisoners Rape, Immigration Equality, Families for Freedom, Rights Working Group, and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. For more on Homeland Guantanamos, read the New York Times coverage here. For more on immigrant detention, be sure to check out Detention Watch Network, a coalition of advocates working to address the immigration detention crisis. - M
If you are going to vote in the upcoming election and haven't registered yet, get going! In a lot of states, today is the last day to register. Check out your state's deadline at Rock the Vote if you don't know it already. (And for all of the North Dakotans out there--be thankful that you don't have to participate in this ridiculousness!) - K
Over the past few weeks, it has been amazing to watch how many organizations are using technology to advocate around the presidential elections, but a quick disclaimer before I start showing off examples: technola doesn't care if you vote for Obama, McCain, Mickey Mouse, or Ben, Kate's beagle, who runs on the platform of "More Meat!" We just want to show off a few examples of how technology is being used. So, now that we're done with that, we can get on to the fun stuff.
I know, I know. LSC-funded legal aid organizations are banned from any lobbying. But other non-profits aren't. In fact, Independent Sector has put together The Nonprofit Lobbying Guide to help non-profits figure out what they can and can't do.
And really, this post isn't about the elections and lobbying. It's about looking at how technology has been used to educate the public and move them to act. And don't even LSC-funded programs have to do that as a part of fundraising or community education or pro bono panel development? - K
Today the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty launched a new wiki called "Street Lawyer: Legal Tools for Economic Justice," which provides fact sheets, Q&A, statutory materials, litigation documents, model programs, policies, legislation, and articles. Topics include the criminalization of homelessness, domestic violence, hate crimes against homeless persons, education for homeless children, right to housing, voting rights and many others. -M
Idealware, an organization we've mentioned before on technola, is offering a free webinar--Online Communications on a Shoestring. The session will look at how websites, e-mail blasts, and social media can help your organization serve its mission. This webinar will be held on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm (Eastern). You can register online here. - K
Evaluating a website is not easy. Since you don't get to interact with your users on a regular basis, often you have to try to read your their minds based on what the server logs tell you. In addition, the meaning of the vocabulary used in the field of web analytics isn't always obvious. (If you don't believe me, check out this list from WebTrends. It's nine pages when printed!)
The good news: you don't need to know a lot of definitions or look at a lot of numbers to keep your finger on the pulse of your website. Personally, I look at two on a regular basis: visits and page views.
A visit is just like it sounds. It's a visit to your site. It is not a hit. Visits give you a general idea of how many people are using your site. Those people, however, are not necessarily unique. For example, let's say you read technola every day. Your visits during September might be counted as 30 visits or 1 visit, depending on how technola counts visits and the settings on your local computer. Or, if you got up from your computer and had left technola up in your browser and your co-worker came in and started reading and surfing around, technola has no way of knowing that your co-worker isn't you and would most likely count your co-worker's activity as part of your visit.
A page view occurs when someone views a page on your website. It is also not a hit. This number gives you an idea of what content people are looking at. By comparing this with the number of visits, you get a picture of whether people are coming to your site and reading multiple pages or whether they look at one page and leave. (Either of these cases could be good or bad depending on the length of time that a person spends the site, the purpose of the pages they are viewing, and whether you are an optimist or a pessimist.)
Of course, there are many other numbers that you can use to glean additional data. But for me, when I just need to check in, these are the two numbers that I rely on. They give me a good overview of what's going on and signal if I need pull out my crystal ball and try to figure out more about what my users have been up to. - K
Enter keywords:
