Clearinghouse Review has just published their yearly review of Supreme Court decisions concerning access to the federal courts online, including links to statutory authority and case law cited in the footnotes of the article. For those of you that subscribe to Clearinghouse Review, a print version of this article will also be published in the January-February 2009 issue. -M
The National Center for State Courts has posted the presentations from the 2008 E-Courts Conference online. - K
If you are a techie, I know that you've told your staff that e-mail attachments are dangerous. In fact, I'm pretty sure that you've said it more than once. But have you told them why?
No, not the explanations of "because you'll get a virus" or "they put the network's security at risk" or "it creates more work for me." You and I know what these reasons imply. But do your staff know why getting a virus is bad or why you have to work so hard to get rid of it?
Let them know plainly that this is also about advocacy and the best interests of their clients. It is about stopping the abusive spouse who wants to access the case management system to get his ex-wife's current name and address or the opposing party who wants to check out your firm's strategy, arguments, and evidence. Remind them that you can't protect the system from intrusions alone and need their help. They need to be careful about the e-mail attachments that they choose to open and let you know as soon as possible if they think that they've made a mistake.
If you need help putting together an easy-to-understand example for your staff, check out Mitigation Monday: Defense Against Malicious E-mail Attachments. It starts with an example scenario that you can easily customize for your firm. And then it gives you a list of defenses that you can implement to help your staff avoid making mistakes. - K
Yesterday, LifeHacker announced that Wikipedia launched its site for mobile devices. - K
Continuing my report on the NLADA Annual Training Conference sessions . . .
Technology Planning 101 - Jim Dill, Kate Bladow, Glenn Rawdon, Kathleen Brockel
So yes, I was on this panel, but I didn't really talk that much. The summary of what I had to say? Don't leave your techies in a room by themselves to create your tech plan. Your plan needs to be based on your organization's strategic plan, and you need buy in from attorneys, paralegals, administrators, and so on. After I was through with that introduction, the good stuff started.
Jim Dill, the Director of Technology at the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, talked about the statewide technology planning process in Pennsylvania. Less than a year old, his position was established to help the legal aid programs create and implement a statewide technology plan. Jim's initial goals have been to learn about the programs' existing infrastructures and needs and to help them to standardize platforms. After these initial steps, he hopes to help them to look at innovative initiatives that could be implemented on a statewide level. A few bits of wisdom that Jim provided the session attendees with:
After some discussion and questions from the audience, Kathleen Brockel shared the results of the LSNTAP technology survey. A few points of interest:
If you want to check out more of the statistics, you can view Kathleen's slides on SlideShare.
Glenn was the closing act and discussed planning for document assembly projects. The summary--programs should be using document assembly. Get on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, I was watching for questions and confused looks and didn't take notes. I would recommend that you check out his slides, which are also on SlideShare. - K
The American Bar Association Center for Pro Bono just launched a new Medical-Legal Partnerships Pro Bono Support Project, which is an ABA-based national medical-legal pro bono support initiative. The Project will "expand the current landscape of medical-legal partnerships by increasing the targeted patient populations, and it will provide support to existing medical-legal partnerships by developing a national support center." To learn more about this project, visit the Project website here. -M
Yesterday, the Texas Supreme Court held a hearing on the state of legal services. In addition to a great opportunity to learn more about Texas' legal services community, this hearing was also an amazing example of how to include people who can't attend in person: Cynthia Martinez, the TRLA Communications Director, live-blogged the entire session, and the hearing was webcast live and recorded. - K
At conferences, I spend a lot of time wandering around the vendor exhibits. Most of this wandering is done when I have been staffing the Pro Bono Net booth at either the NLADA Annual Training Conference or the Equal Justice Conference. However, this year, even though, or maybe because, NLADA had a great layout for the exhibit hall, I didn't end up wandering around as much.
Nevertheless, I did swing by the Management Information Exchange booth and pick up the latest copy of the MIE Journal. At the same time, I found hard copies of the first two installments of the Access to Justice Series from the Brennan Center for Justice. When I picked them up, I assumed that they were new documents, but when I started reading them at home, I realized that they were written in response to the massive cuts of 1996. I was awed by the stories that had been collected, and they made me incredibly proud to be working with the legal aid community. Along with Houseman's and Perle's "Securing Equal Justice For All: A Brief History of Civil Legal Assistance in the United States," I would recommend that legal aid organizations include these documents as suggested reading for new employees. In addition to providing inspiration, these documents explain why many advocates long for the "good old days" and why organizations advocate so strongly for dropping the restrictions.
Look for Part 3 in my NLADA series tomorrow. I'll cover some more sessions. - K
Marketplace, the public radio show on finances and the economy, wants to know how the financial crisis is affecting you. They've posted an online survey where you can respond. Responses are confidential, but they are obviously looking for stories that they can air. Legal aid programs should consider responding to raise the media's and public's awareness of legal aid and how its funding is declining as the need for its services is climbing. - K
Yesterday, I mentioned that some clients have asked advocates to contact them by text message rather than by phone. Since not every advocate has a work cell and most advocates don't want to text clients from their personal number, I thought that I'd pass along an article from LifeHacker on how to send text messages with e-mail. And for those of you who need to brush up on common abbreviations so that you can decode the messages that your clients send back, check out this list. - K
Law.com recently published an informative article on "How to Build a Better Law Blog," which includes a great list of tips for new law bloggers. -M
I sat in on several great sessions at the NLADA Annual Conference. While most weren't technology sessions, technology was nicely woven in to all of the presentations.
LSC Updates - Helaine Barnett, Karen Sarjeant, John Constance
I missed the first few minutes of the session, but I did arrive in time to hear Helaine Barnett talk about the LSC technology survey and the resulting guidelines document, Technologies That Should Be in Place in a Legal Aid Office Today, which was recently released. LSC is working to support grantees as they implement the outlined technologies. In particular, they worked with LexisNexis to develop a HotDocs software donation program and have funded the national document assembly project (NPADO) to support programs implementing document assembly initiatives. Through TIG, LSC provided funding for an updated version of the case management system report as well as a rating system for hardware, software, and vendors. LSC is also looking at identifying additional training opportunities and, as a part of this, will be webcasting parts of the TIG conference. In order to ensure that programs are looking at using technology to improve their service delivery, a technology plan will become a required part of an LSC grant application as was previously mentioned on technola. Additional technology-related news that was mentioned: LSC will shortly be sending check notices electronically; 33 TIGs were awarded; and LSC has funded the development of a website that focuses on legal issues for active military and veterans.
Client Use of Technology: 2008 Updates - Gene Donney, Kathleen Brockel
Gene led a great session about Internet use. (His slides are available on the LSNTAP.org site.) It was one of the most interactive sessions that I've participated in for a while. And Kathleen was an amazing Vanna White! My take aways:
That's all for today. Check back later this week for more. - K
On Tuesday, December 9th at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, TechSoup Global will be hosting a free webinar on stopping spam. Kami Griffiths will interview Eytan Urbas from Mailshell to help nonprofits understand how they can save money and keep their inboxes secure. You can register online here, and send questions to kami@techsoupglobal.org. -M
The Brennan Center for Justice has contributed several pieces on access to justice and civil legal aid to transition documents intended for the incoming Obama Administration and the 111th Congress, including Restoring Legal Aid for the Poor, End the Harmful Restrictions on Legal Aid, and What the Next Administration Should Do to Improve Language Access in the Courts. -M
This year at my house, we decided to make this holiday season more about giving than gifting. Neither Garrett nor I need any more things, and most of our family and friends are in the same place. Because so many others haven't been as fortunate, we decided to make donations to non-profits on behalf of our family and friends rather than buying gifts. So instead of facing the post-Thanksgiving shopping crowds, Garrett and I spent time together picking out causes that matched with people's interests: FirstBook for the sister-in-law that reads more than Matthew; Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary for the brother who wants to bring every stray animal home; and health-related Gifts That Give More for my mother-in-law the nurse. Now, even if my family isn't completely satisfied with their gifts, at least I know that they won't be sitting in a closet unused.
If you are interested in doing something similar, there are plenty of sites to help you pick out the right cause. For example: Redefine Christmas, Network for Good, and JustGive.org. Or if you already know the organization you want to give to, you can head directly to their website for information on how to give.
For those of you who don't want to or can't give up giving gifts, there are still ways for you to make your gifts go farther. When you shop at The Hunger Store or Epic Change Gift Shop, a portion of your purchase helps to feed a family or build a school. Also, through We-Care.com when you shop at merchants like Target, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, a portion of your purchase is directed to the organization of your choice. (I'd recommend Pro Bono Net, but I am a little biased.)
And even if you don't want to spend any money, there are still ways for you to give. Check out the Give List. Through del.icio.us, Twitter, and their blogs, people are contributing ideas for how to give back without spending anything more than time. - K
Steven Nipper of the InventBlog is hosting a free webinar on online tool and trends on December 16 at noon Eastern. From the agenda, it looks like it will cover a variety of topics including social media, mobile technology, and what comes next. Justin Foster of Tricycle, Inc. will be the presenter. - K
Polyglot Systems, who develop solutions to reduce communication barriers in the medical field, is offering a free webinar on December 9, 2008 at 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST entitled "Using Technology to Improve Access to Language Services." More information and the registration form is available here. -M
These days it's assumed that you know a lot of basic technology information--how to use a mouse, how to search on Google, and how to turn off your computer--pretty simple actions you need to use a computer effectively.
But it is also assumed that you know a lot of information that is more nuanced. Unfortunately, this information isn't written down in one place, and you have to gather it over time and learn from your mistakes.
Today, I came across a couple of articles that detail some of this information. The first, from the Reader's Digest, reviews 13 Things Your Computer Person Won't Tell You. The second, from the ABA Journal, pointed out Things You Should Never Put in an E-mail. Likely, you know most of it, but a reminder never hurts. And don't you have someone that you'd like to pass it on to? - K
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently updated their Medicare and Medicaid factsheets, which highlight who is eligible and what services are provided. Thanks to the Minnesota Legal Services Coalition for pointing this information out in their e-newsletter, JUST NEWS. - K
The Wall Street Journal reports that the FCC has proposed a plan that would provide free wireless Internet to Americans, but both telecom providers and consumer advocates object to it. Consumer advocates dislike the plan because the service will be required to filter out pornography and material not suitable for children; the telecom providers object for the obvious reasons. The FCC will likely take action on this plan at its December 18 meeting. - K
The ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services is currently seeking nominations for the 2009 Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access, which "recognizes programs and projects that have made innovative and/or substantial contributions toward meeting the legal needs of people with moderate incomes." Details about the Award and the nomination process are available here. The deadline is December 15, 2008. -M
Just a heads up for those of you trying to develop media contacts. My Creative Team has developed a wiki of media outlets and journalists on Twitter, and another list is available from New Media Strategy. Check out the people who are local to your area. Chances are that if you follow them they'll follow you back because they are always looking for leads. And who knows? Maybe it will help you to get coverage of your next big project launch. - K
As you may have guessed, my Internet access was spotty at the NLADA Annual Conference. Neither the hotel nor NLADA provided Internet access in the conference rooms, and I didn't spend enough time awake in my hotel room to use the connection there. But I promise that I took lots of notes and will share them shortly. However, before I get to those posts, I wanted to mention the news that filled my feed reader while I was gone: legal aid is facing a funding crisis, and lots of people still need help. The topic wasn't a surprise--funding was a part of nearly every conversation and panel at the conference. What was a surprise was the number of articles. In addition to a national perspective from NPR's All Things Considered, there was coverage from eight states:
But in the midst of this bad news, I did find a bright story. On Twitter, I was able to follow the progress of UberChick, who was reaching out to legal aid for help. (Posts: 11/20(1), 11/20(2), 11/20(3), 11/21(1), 11/21(2), and 11/26.) Seems that she was able to find an attorney to help her. It reminded me of what it feels like to be searching for help while trying to keep your world from falling apart. (And she's not the only potential legal aid client on Twitter. Search on "legal aid" to see who else is out there.) - K
Enter keywords:
