Technola : Public Interest Law & Technology Updates & Commentary : Matthew Burnett & Kate Bladow : Tech Advice for the Non-Profit Legal Sector

No? Well, good. Your sys admin probably doesn't want a hug from you anyway. But you should make certain to wish her or him a "Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day!" today.

It may look like they are just "playing on the computer," but they aren't. Sys admins work hard:

A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working. A sysadmin makes sure your computer is working in a healthy way on a healthy network. A sysadmin takes backups to guard against disaster both human and otherwise, holds the gates against security threats and crackers, and keeps the printers going no matter how many copies of the tax code someone from Accounting prints out.

A sysadmin worries about spam, viruses, spyware, but also power outages, fires and floods.

When the email server goes down at 2 AM on a Sunday, your sysadmin is paged, wakes up, and goes to work.

A sysadmin is a professional, who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work -- to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

And we don't make their jobs easy. Nor do their families give them a break. (Imagine going home and hearing "Son, it's great to talk to you. It has been a while. So, I called because I've been having a problem with my computer at work. Can you tell me how to make [insert random ancient proprietary software package name] work?" or "Susie, I bought a [insert random piece of hardware name]. Can you configure it for me while you're visiting on vacation?")

So today, take a moment and thank your system administrator for the all of his or her hard work. And if you're feeling especially thankful, I've heard that they like gifts. - K

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If you follow the LSTech e-mail list, you've likely seen posts about Adobe Reader's security flaws. Several alternative PDF readers have been suggested, including Foxit Reader and Sumatra PDF. But if you are uncertain of which of these suggested readers you should be using, Lifehacker's visitors are ready to tell you what they think the best PDF reader is and why. - K

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After a rough flight and a happy landing, I'm back in the Baltimore area and attending the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in DC today. (Yep. A lot of travel, and it's not stopping. On Tuesday, I plan to be in College Park, Maryland at the Maryland Access to Justice Commission listening session.)

So today, in exchange for speaking about "Online Interactive Court Forms for Self-Represented Litigants: The Library's Role," I get to hang out with over 2,400 law librarians from across the US and around the world as well as listen to some great panels and visit the exhibit hall.

If you are here, please find me and say "hi." Otherwise, again I will post updates here at Technola as well as on Twitter. If you are interested in following the entire conference, which runs through Tuesday, you can search for #AALL2009 on Twitter.

And don't worry. I've have several more posts from BlogHer coming. - K

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My second session, Your Blog Is Great, Get People to Know About It, covered enough information to fill an entire track. Since I can't explain the topic well in a short post, I've found good articles that cover the two main points: search engine optimization and social media and network sites.

Search Engine Optimization

• Search Engine Optimization 101 from MarketLeap. A series of articles about the core concepts around search engine optimization (SEO). (Courtesy of the Pro Bono Net SWEB Support site, which has a great section on Search Engines and marketing, but you have to be a member to access it.)
• 5 Quick Steps to Better SEO and 5 More Quick Steps to Better SEO. Two blog posts from Allyson Kapin and Jarrod Seltzer on care2's frogloop blog.

Social Media and Network Sites

• Using Online Social Networks to Build Buzz, Community & Support for Your Cause. Slides from a presentation by Jonathan Colman, Scott Goodstein, and Heather Holdridge.
• How to Show Your Soul and Engage Users on Twitter from TwiTip.

A few resources to try to cover the large amounts of content covered in the this session. Definitely topics that need more attention in the future. - K

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My first BlogHer breakout session, Owning Your Expertise, was an interactive session that fell a little short because of the large number of people that attended. However, I did take away a few key bits.

• Women write only 10 to 20 percent of newspaper opinion pieces, but they are prolific bloggers. The Op-Ed Project works with women, nonprofits, corporations, universities, and others to teach women to submit more op-eds.
• To get attention from media and other influencers, you need to figure out what you are an expert in and let them know.
• Use the sentence "I am an expert in [specific subject] because [reasons] to craft a good statement of why these influencers should listen to you.
• Don't feel like you are bragging. Sharing knowledge is good.

So what does this mean for legal aid/pro bono blogs? Public interest lawyers are smart, well-spoken people. You are experts in many diverse legal issues: divorces, parenting plans, debt collection, public benefits, health care, and so on. The media covers these topics daily. Why shouldn't they be using public interest advocates as their experts? The media gets good information, and your organization gets some publicity and attracts new donors, volunteers, and clients. - K

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Sitting in a hotel ballroom with 1,400 people, most of them amazing women who either blog or want to blog? Attending a conference with sponsors who have brought awesome swag and cater to attendees because they make household financial decisions? Yes, well, welcome to BlogHer 2009. Find me and introduce yourself!

If not, well, I expect to be posting updates on Technola and on Twitter through the day and part of tomorrow. You can also follow the gigantic stream of tweets from the conference by searching Twitter. - K

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Pro Bono Net is turning 10 this year! If you've been reading Pro Bono Net's newsletters, you've seen the articles documenting its past and looking toward the future.

But you may not know where the idea for the organization came from. (And honestly, even though I've worked with and for Pro Bono Net for a total of six years, I didn't know until recently either.) Turns out that Mark O'Brien and Michael Hertz, Pro Bono Net's co-founders, met when they were handling pro bono asylum cases in the mid-1990s. These cases resulted from the Golden Venture, the infamous smuggling ship, running aground in New York City in 1993. It was carrying 286 immigrants, most of whom were sent to detention centers through out the US. Mark and Michael quickly realized that technology could help the many advocates collaborate better, even though they may not be in the same place.

The stories of the immigrants on the boat were documented in Peter Cohn's movie Golden Venture, which was an Official Selection of the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2006 Amnesty International Film Festival.

In recognition of this story's connection with Pro Bono Net's beginning, and Pro Bono Net's 10th Anniversary, Peter Cohn has graciously agreed to give half the proceeds of every DVD purchased to Pro Bono Net. You can purchase a copy for $24.95. - K

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In my post, Crowdsourcing Tedious Tasks for Fun and (Non)Profit, I discussed how the Sunlight Foundation was using website visitors to get tasks done a little bit at a time.

What I neglected to mention was that Amazon has had a similar project in place for almost four years: Amazon Mechanical Turk. Instead of using volunteers, this service pays people tiny amounts ($0.01 to $0.05 is typical) for each Human Intelligence Task (HIT) that they complete. Critics have referred to Amazon Mechnical Turk as a virtual sweatshop because of the minimum wage, workers compensation, and overtime laws that are avoided.

Recently, the Berkman Center hosted a session that discussed these issues: HIT me baby one more time, Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Amazon Mechanical Turk. In this webinar, Aaron Shaw explains what Amazon Mechanical Turk is, its implications on the labor market, and who is using it. (Hint: it's not just middle-income people using it to make some extra cash.) - K

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Nolo is making its “Foreclosure Survival Guide,” written by Stephen Elias, available for free online. In addition to a wealth of information on bankruptcy and foreclosure, the Guide also contains tips on nonprofit housing counselors, finding a lawyer, bankruptcy petition preparers and researching the law. -M

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NPower today released its 2009 Community Technology Survey, which synthesizes the results of a survey completed by over 1,000 nonprofit organizations from a variety of sectors. Topics include IT staffing, spending, funding, infrastructure, adoption, email communication and file sharing, website management and marketing, event and donor management, program and service delivery, finance and human resources, and social media. Overall, the survey suggests that “IT is still a small part of a nonprofit’s overall focus as lack of funding and ongoing costs call for a higher level of quality and affordability in the nonprofit IT services arena.” -M

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I like word clouds. You can quickly get a feel for how often a word is used in a speech, article, or other block of text. For example, below is a word cloud, which was created with Wordle, based on Technola's front page.

Technola Word Cloud

With the many free online tools available, word clouds are extremely easy to make. There is even a tool for Twitter. TwitterSheep lets you create a word cloud from the bios of a user's followers. For example, a lot of @accesstojustice's followers use "lawyer," "attorney," "law," or "justice" in their bios.

However, other than quickly gauging a piece of content's focus, how would poverty law advocates benefit from word clouds? Or are word clouds just pretty images? - K

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LSNTAP's Executive Roundtable in June focused on developing social networking policies. Featuring Stephanie Kimbro, owner of Kimbro Legal Services, a North Carolina virtual law office, and recent recipient of the ABA James I. Keane Memorial Award for her excellence in delivering legal services online, and Will Hornsby, staff counsel at the American Bar Association, this session was a good introduction to developing policies and provided an excellent starting point for programs thinking about social networking policies.

Since that session, I've found several additional policy resources:

• American Red Cross Social Media Strategy Handbook and American Red Cross Personal Communications Guidelines. Wendy Harman, American Red Cross Social Media Manager, shared her draft handbook with the public. These guides are based on the work of several large organizations, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Sun. (Beth Kanter talks about Wendy's materials here.)
• Social Media Policies and Procedures (Part 1). Daniel Hoang's post discusses policies briefly and then provides a sample policy and extensive list of resources.
• Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines and Social Media Policy Examples. Two long lists of social media policies. The Enterprise list also has some nice commentary on what to look at when examining policies. [Thanks to Kevin O'Keefe for pointing these pages out.]

So, does your organization have a policy in place? If so, please share. I know that LSNTAP is looking for more examples. And if your organization is working to put a policy in place, I'd love to hear what you want, or don't want, to see in that policy. - K

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A recent episode of This American Life (7/10/09; 385) investigates the trials and tribulations of "pro se." Beginning in a self-help center at a Manhattan housing court, the episode explores the challenges of defending oneself, both legally and otherwise. -M

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Last week, the Center for American Progress released a report "And Justice for All: Prioritizing Free Legal Assistance During the Great Recession." To celebrate the release, the Center hosted an event where leaders from the national and Washington, DC access-to-justice communities discussed "Narrowing the Justice Gap: Legal Services for the Poor in an Economic Downturn."

This event featured two panels:

• Panel One: Legal Services on the National Stage. Peter B. Edelman, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center; Ted Frank, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; Don Saunders, Director of Civil Legal Services, National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA); Moderated by: Joy Moses, Policy Analyst, Poverty & Prosperity Program, Center for American Progress
• Panel Two: Poverty Law in the District of Columbia. Susan M. Hoffman, Public Service Partner, Crowell & Moring LLP; Jonathan M. Smith, Executive Director, Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia; The Honorable Inez Smith Reid, Associate Judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals; Moderated by: Steven L. Grumm, Board President, Washington Council of Lawyers; Director of Public Service Initiatives, National Association for Law Placement

My biggest take away from the panels: Our community needs to have more of these public conversations.

The Center was very smart and invited Ted Frank to participate. Mr. Frank does not support funding legal aid organizations with federal money. This alternative viewpoint provided for an interesting discussion. (And Mr. Frank, thank you for being willing to participate. Speaking as the sole dissenter on a panel in front of what I imagine was an audience that largely disagreed with what you had to say probably wasn't easy.)

For me, however, rather than disagreeing with what he said, I was amazed at how misinformed he was about legal aid and pro bono legal services. His misconceptions are especially scary because he's a national expert. Most people have less knowledge about what legal aid organizations and pro bono programs do than he does.

This tells me that our community needs to look for more opportunities to talk about what we do to correct these misunderstandings and remind people that most cases don't generate fees, and most legal aid and pro bono attorneys aren't taking the "sexy" cases. This is also important advocacy on behalf of low-income communities. Unfortunately, this type of advocacy can easily take a backseat when resources are tight, and we want to direct as many resources as possible to client services.

That said, we also need to remember to be open to what critics say. Mr. Frank had several suggestions and ideas about how to serve poor communities better. I don't think most of them will work, but why not brainstorm? Solutions often show up where you least expect them.

Check the video out. It's a little long (2 hours) but worth watching. I'd like to hear what you think about it. - K

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In April, I asked legal aid programs if they were using Craigslist for outreach. A couple of people responded, reporting mixed results but expressing interest in trying again.  (If either of you are reading this, please let us know if you have additional results to report.)

If you have or are thinking about including Craigslist in your outreach plans, "Lawyers Advertising on Craigslist," a recent Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast, is worth listening to. This episode features Will Hornsby, counsel at the ABA's Division for Legal Services, who provides an overview of several ethical issues that you need to consider. - K

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The Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta, a nonprofit that connects transactional lawyers with nonprofit organizations in need of pro bono legal services, is hosting a webinar on "Legal Issues of Social Networking" on July 15 at 10 am Eastern. This session will cover the legal risks associated with social networking and look at how organizations can draft and enforce policies that help to minimize these risks.

You can register for this session by July 10, 2009 or tune in to the live webcast at GeorgiaAdvocates.org. - K

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Pingdom, a web-based service that allows you to monitor websites and servers, is now offering free accounts. The free account includes the same features and functionality as paid accounts, but can only be used to monitor one website or server. You must also pay for extra SMS alerts (20 are included, emails are free) and login every 90 days to keep your account active. To get started, sign-up here and use the control panel to setup your account. – M [Thanks Dan!]

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A recently aired ABC story (above) on the growth of self-help centers and websites as alternative sources of legal information for those who cannot afford a lawyer. Featured sites include LawHelp.org, the American Bar Association and Illinois Legal Aid Online, as well as a few commercial legal websites. -M [Thanks Eve and Allison!]

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It's summer in Baltimore-hot and humid. Fortunately, my planned yard renovations were finished before the end of May, and now I can retreat to the backyard hammock with some good reading without feeling too guilty. If you're also lucky enough to be able to spend some of your summer catching up on reading, might I suggest a few Technola posts? Here's a few of June's best.

• New York Launches Interactive Forms for the Public
• ABA Manual on Sale: "Innovative Fundraising Ideas for Legal Services"
• Sunlight Foundation Suggests Facelift for SCOTUS Website
• Collaboration Software Compared
• Evidently I Was Wrong. I Love My Kindle

Already read those and looking for something new? Check these out:

• What Makes for a Good Blog? - 43 Folders
• 30 Different Uses for RSS - louisgray.com
• Priming the pump of efficiency - Seth Godin
• ALL staff - not just the volunteer manager - should involve volunteers - Jayne Cravens

Happy Reading! - K

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Computers are great at performing repetitive tasks, but they aren't perfect. Ask a computer to transcribe a podcast, re-write a sentence, or describe an image, and you'll get mixed results. But the result of these tasks can be incredibly important, so they still need to be done.

For example, double-checking assigned case closing codes in your program's case management system. You can't write a script. You need a person to read the notes and confirm the code--a mind-numbing task when you have to do hundreds of cases at a time. But in the end it's worth it. No legal aid director wants to fail their case audit and have to put together and execute a corrective action plan.

Other businesses and nonprofit organizations have similar tedious tasks that need to get done. Several are opting to crowdsource, or divide among many people in order to conquer, the tasks. The Sunlight Foundation's Transparency Corps project, launched yesterday (June 30, 2009), is an excellent example of this concept. Supporters can volunteer for less than five minutes to help make the federal government a bit more transparent.

Intrigued by the idea of online volunteering, I checked Transparency Corps out tonight. Currently, the public can either upload a picture in support of the Read the Bill campaign, which wants Congress to post bills online for at least 72 hours before considering them, or parsing some earmark requests to grow the Sunlight Foundation's earmark database. I opted to read earmarks.

Reading Earmarks as part of the Transparency Corps

It turned out to be an easy, entertaining task. I quickly read through several earmarks, double-checking what was pre-entered into each of the fields and making corrections, if necessary. Not having much experience with earmarks, it was interesting to see where tax revenue is going. Most requests were for road and building improvements. One earmark was $1 million for the University of Alabama Domestic Violence Law Clinic. Of the thirty earmarks that I read, the most interesting was a request for funding to make a jail ADA compliant and buy tasers. (I'm certain that it makes sense to the person who needs the money, but it struck me as an odd mix.)

So what do you think? Are there tasks that the legal aid community might consider crowdsourcing? Could the Transparency Corps be a model for our community to follow? - K

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