As part of its Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center, Idealist.org has developed an excellent resource for prospective graduate students contemplating a career in public interest law. Available as a downloadable PDF, it provides a wealth of information on what to look for in a law school, the law school application process, possible career paths, and the challenges facing public interest lawyers after they graduate. -M
The National Center for State Courts, the Self-Represented Litigation Network, and the Legal Services Corporation are hosting a two-day conference on how public libraries can improve access to online legal information. The training takes place on January 11th and 12th in Austin, TX. Participants will learn how to access legal information online and how to develop effective partnerships between libraries and legal services organizations, among other topics. Conference organizers will select between 10 and 15 teams from around the country to participate. More information about the training is available here. -M
The annual National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) conference is taking place November 18-21 in Denver, CO. As always, there are a number of great sessions focusing on technology, including online video, social media, GIS/mapping, document assembly, statewide websites, and the strategic role of technology in legal services delivery.
Thursday, November 19
10:15-11:45
Wise Investing for Lean Times: Strategies for Capacity Building and Finding Partners with Common Interests for Technology Projects
Social Media Tools for Advocacy, Fundraising and Connecting
5:30-6:30
NLADA Technology Section Meeting
Friday, November 20
8:30-10:00
Practical Uses of GIS Mapping: Telling Your Story, Needs Assessment, and Outreach Planning
10:15-11:45
Wither Does Thou Wonder? Desktop, Online Document Assembly, or Both?
2:15-3:45
The Future is Now: What Technologies are Emerging as Useful Tools for Attorneys and their Programs
The Digital Update: Times, Trivia, and Important Technology Information for the Legal Services Community
4:00-5:30
Changing Times: Approaches to Using Video to Deliver Legal Services
Saturday, November 21
9:15-10:45
Not Just a Pretty Interface: A2J Author Delivers Solutions for Challenging Times
The full conference program, which includes session descriptions and presenters, is available here. -M
The Legal Services Corporation recently released an update to its 2005 report on the justice gap in America. Highlights include:
The full report is available for download here (PDF). -M
This year the Management Information Exchange (MIE) and LSC’s Technology Initiative Grants Program (TIG) will be hosting conferences during the same week in January in Austin, TX. The TIG conference will take place from January 13-15, 2009 and the MIE National Conference for Legal Services Administrators will take place from January 12-13, 2009. Registration information for the TIG conference will be available in September. -M
Kate and I published a primer on social networking for poverty law advocates and organizations in the July-August 2009 issue of Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy. Here’s the abstract:
The emergence of social network websites as some of the most highly visited on the Internet presents an opportunity for poverty law advocates to leverage these networks to maximize the impact of advocacy work. To accomplish this, advocates must first understand what these networks are (including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), how they function, and what they offer to support communication and collaboration around advocacy. Guidance and concrete examples of how individuals and organizations can most productively engage with social networks assist advocates in making the most of these tools.
Our thanks to Jason Vail, Ilze Hirsh, and Michelle Nicolet at the Shriver Center as well as Liz Keith and Pam Weisz at Pro Bono Net for their suggestions and support. We’re also working on putting together a webinar on social networking with the Shriver Center in October. More details on that to come. In the meantime, please share your thoughts about the article in the comments. We’d love to hear your feedback. –M&K
On Thursday, July 2nd at 11 am PT / 2 pm ET LSNTAP will host a Roundtable with Brian Lawlor, Regional Counsel for Legal Services of Northern California, who will discuss "Findability and the Google Search Paradigm: Integrating Search as a Organizational Solution." This discussion is based on LSNC’s Findability Project, an effort to integrate (and document) enterprise search in a large nonprofit legal services organization. Registration details are availble here and Brian's presentation is available here. -M
The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) offers LSC-funded legal aid programs free annual memberships that include
With reduced training budgets, these free memberships could be a great way for legal aid staff to review important legal concepts and develop training materials for self-study. - K
My Pro Bono Net colleague Tory Messina pointed out two documents from the DC Bar Foundation that aren't technology-related but are likely of interest to Technola readers. These documents, Summary of Listening Session with Pro Bono Counsel and Summary of Listening Sessions with Legal Services Providers, highlight how pro bono counsel and legal services providers are being affected by the economic crisis and how they are trying to cope. My impression: the picture is pretty bleak.
While these documents focus on DC providers, I'm guessing that their comments reflect what is being seen more widely. I'd love to hear whether or not this is true. Let me know in the comments. - K
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Immigrant Defense Project, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and National Legal Aid and Defender Association recently launched the Defending Immigrants Partnership website, which aims to ensure effective legal representation of non-citizen defendants in criminal proceedings. To access the resource library you must join the site, but membership is free. - K
The International Bar Association's Media Law Committee and Human Rights Institute today launched a new website for legal professionals that work to defend freedom of expression:
The goal of the site is to create a global community of media lawyers for mutual support and discussion. The website will act as a point of information sharing, capacity building and networking for those involved in media work all over the world. In particular, it will provide details of, and links to, local and global organisations working in the sector.
In recognition of Veterans Day, we wanted to highlight opportunities for attorneys to get involved in assisting veterans and military personnel with their legal needs. Below are four projects that do just that. By providing opportunities and resources for lawyers to offer pro bono legal services, ranging from protecting veterans benefits to providing general civil legal assistance to active-duty military personnel, these projects help to ensure that those who serve our country are not left without legal representation on issues that fundamentally impact their livelihoods.
ABA Military Pro Bono Project - The American Bar Association's Military Pro Bono Project connects active-duty military personnel to free legal assistance for civil legal issues beyond the scope of services provided by a military legal assistance office.
National Veterans Legal Services Program - NVLSP is an independent, nonprofit, veterans service organization dedicated to ensuring that the U.S. government honors its commitment to our veterans by providing them the federal benefits they have earned through their service to our country. NVLSP recently launched Lawyers Serving Warriors, which provides free legal representation in disability, discharge and veterans benefits cases to service members and veterans who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).
The Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program - The Veterans Consortium was created by a grant from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) as authorized by the U.S. Congress. It is an ongoing cooperative effort by four national veterans service organizations - The American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, the National Veterans Legal Services Program and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.
Project SALUTE - Project SALUTE provides free assistance and/or representation to thousands of low-income veterans exclusively on federal benefits issues throughout the United States. -M
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
As a follow-up to Kate's last post on National Support Centers, I thought that I would highlight some online resources available on the history of civil legal services in the United States.
A great place to start is the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), and specifically the work of Alan Houseman and Linda Perle, who together authored "Securing Equal Justice for All: A Brief History of Civil Legal Assistance in the United States" (PDF). Also available on the CLASP website are "Civil Legal Aid in the United States: An Update for 2007" (PDF) and "The Future of Civil Legal Aid in the United States" (PDF), both by Houseman.
The NLADA website provides a brief history of civil legal aid and Wikipedia has a "Legal aid" category, which provides some background on a few state, national and foreign legal aid organizations.
On Google Book Search you'll find Justice and the Poor, by Reginald Heber Smith, and the excellent Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement, 1960-1973, by Martha Davis. (And while not much of it is available online, I would also recommend Access to Justice, by Deborah Rhode.)
Finally, LSNTAP has compiled a number of resources that cover the history and role of technology in the legal aid community here. -M
Recently, the LSTech e-mail list had a brief, but interesting, conversation about the National Support Centers. I put the e-mails aside with the hope of later writing a more thorough post on their history. Unfortunately, tonight, when I got a chance to do some research, I wasn't able to find a lot of information.
The story that I can put together from the resources that I did find:
The National Support Centers were funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to support legal services programs by creating materials, litigating on strategic cases, advocating before legislatures and Congress, and building a community of advocates knowledgeable about specific areas of law. During the Reagan era, a lot of Republicans didn't like federal money supporting legal aid and "think tanks for the radical left." While Reagan and his supporters didn't succeed in completely killing off LSC, they did get rid of funding for the National Support Centers. The National Support Centers had to turn to other funding sources to continue.
So, for those of you who lived through it, how did I do? What did I get wrong? Are there resources that I missed? - K
The Legal Services Corporation and LexisNexis have announced the launch of the HotDocs® software donation program:
The new donation program will strengthen the important national online document assembly project that LexisNexis, LSC and the State Justice Institute have nurtured to provide access to justice for low-income Americans. LSC initiated that program, known as National Public Automated Documents Online (NPADO), in 2001 with a grant to the Ohio State Legal Services Association that developed a system in which legal aid programs use HotDocs® Professional Edition to create easy-to-use guided document assembly interviews from existing forms. Interviews are then uploaded to a national server, allowing users to assemble professional-looking legal documents.
Any LSC or state IOLTA funded legal services organization can request a donation using the program's website. -M
As was mentioned on Technola in April, the ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services is holding hearings on technology and delivery of legal services. The next hearing will be held during the ABA Annual Meeting on August 8, 2008.
For those of you who weren't able to attend the hearing that took place at the 2008 Equal Justice Conference, you can now listen to the testimony online. - K
The Brennan Center for Justice Legal Services E-Lert, one of my favorite e-newsletters, brought to my attention a great example of a legal aid blog: Foreclosure Buzz. Robert Doggett, a Texas RioGrande Legal Aid attorney, writes about foreclosure news and attempts to dispel common myths about what you should do if you are facing a foreclosure. Robert, great job! Keep it up! - K
The Shriver Center's Clearinghouse Review is hosting an online discussion of the foreclosure crisis and legal strategies. To join, go to the discussion group website and sign up using your Google account. For more information, e-mail Martin Stainthorp. -M
I've mentioned before that computers, the Internet, and other technologies can be dangerous for domestic violence survivors. Online behavior that may be second nature for you -- participating openly in social networks, sending e-mail, or even having an answering machine -- may open up avenues for additional abuse for them. Advocates who work with domestic violence survivors need to be aware of the risks of technology use as well as be able to assess if technology has already been used to abuse the survivor. For example:
If you work with domestic violence survivors, I encourage you to spend some time reviewing the information on the Safety Net: the National Safe and Strategic Technology Project website. Safety Net is a program of the National Network to End Domestic Violence and was developed to educate people on how to use technology strategically in order to keep domestic violence survivors safe. In particular, I encourage you read A High-Tech Twist on Abuse, which has strategies and information for advocates as well as a safety planning handout for survivors. - K
Matthew and I will both be at EJC this week. For those of you who will be joining us, stop by the Pro Bono Net booth to say "hi." And if you won't be going, keep an eye on the blog for updates. Matthew and I are hoping to do some live blogging. (Or in my case, some semi-live blogging depending on available Internet access.) - K
Last Thursday, Marketplace highlighted The Medical-Legal Partnership for Children | Boston (MLPC). MLPC works to address legal problems that have caused or exacerbated health problems in children. (Examples include a food stamp denial that causes a child to end up underfed or a mold-infested apartment that causes a child to have repeated asthma attacks.) To fix these problems, it takes the work of both a doctor and an attorney -- a doctor to diagnose the medical issue and recognize when legal intervention might help and a lawyer to follow up with the patient's family and resolve the legal problem. it's a great program that improves clients' health and well-being as well as saves health care facilities and the public money. You can check out the transcript or listen to the podcast on the Marketplace site. - K
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