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

[Editor's Note: The following post is by the Shriver Center’s Web and e-Communications Director, Michelle Nicolet. It shares data from a recent survey by editors of the Clearinghouse Review on the use of online tools and resources by legal aid advocates. We asked Michelle if she would write up the results of the survey in a guest blog post for technola, and she was kind enough to agree. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. –M]

Legal aid advocates have an array of online resources at their fingertips. Moreover, the growth of social media offers new ways for advocates to connect with and learn from one another. But which resources are advocates using? A recent survey conducted by the Editorial Team of Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy attempted to learn more about poverty lawyers’ current use of online resources.

The survey, conducted in April and May 2011, received 285 responses from legal services and other advocates working in 43 states. By a wide margin, the most popular online resource used for legal research or professional development is listservs, which are used by 81% of respondents. Other popular resources include government websites (72.9%), webinars and webinar recordings (64.4%), Westlaw (53.5%), statewide websites (53.5%), and the respondents’ own programs’ websites or intranets (48.9%). Lesser used resources include podcasts (7%) and law-related blogs or “blawgs” (25.1%).

Respondents show more willingness to read online than ever before. When asked how an online-only version of Clearinghouse Review would affect their use of the journal, 38% said they would be more likely to read the Review, and 48% said their use of the Review would not be affected. Only 14% of respondents said that they would be less likely to read the Review if it were only available online. This is a significant shift from just a few years ago. In a 2007 survey, 81% of respondents reported that they did not regularly read Clearinghouse Review online.

Some of the increased willingness to use online resources may be traced to the availability of content on mobile devices. Over 45% of respondents to the survey reported reading web content on a mobile phone or tablet device, with 73% of those reporting that they read content on a mobile device daily. Clearly, the next generation of legal aid websites should be mobile-friendly to ensure the broadest accessibility by advocates.

Only 29.1% of respondents indicated that they use RSS newsfeeds to stay on top of relevant news and information. Although this is a slightly higher percentage than reported in a similar 2007 survey, it still seems surprisingly low and possibly presents an opportunity for training.

In addition, although more respondents reported using social media than in earlier surveys, professional use of social media is still quite limited. The most popular network for professional use, LinkedIn, is still not used by a majority of respondents. Even Facebook and YouTube, which a majority of respondents reported using for personal reasons, are scarcely used by respondents to connect with one another professionally. The potential impact of social networking to support communication and collaboration around poor people’s issues remains largely unrealized in the legal services community.

The editors of Clearinghouse Review are grateful to the survey respondents for their input. Through the Review and related content, we seek to promote coordinated affirmative advocacy efforts, support an emerging generation of advocates for social and economic justice, and foster a sense of community among legal aid and poverty lawyers. The information collected in this and other surveys will be extraordinarily helpful as we plan future content for Clearinghouse Review.

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Want to wish your co-workers "Happy Holidays!" with a little something but don't have any money to spend? Here comes Google to your rescue again.

Recently, they released Teach Parents Tech, a site that helps you put together a tech support care package for your parents and other people who may need computer help. Quickly, you can draft a personalized email and add videos that cover everything from adjusting the time on your computer's clock to browsing the web with tabs to resizing a picture.

So take a couple of minutes to create a care package for a co-worker who would appreciate it. Perhaps, you'll even find a video or two to incorporate into a care package for yourself. - K

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A team of experts from the Proskauer Rose LLP's Not-For-Profit/Exempt Organization Practice has started to blog about nonprofit law at Not-For-Profit/Exempt Organizations Blog. In addition to helping legal aid administrators with issues at their own programs, this blog can be passed on to directors at partner programs as a resource to help them with their questions. - K

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The Chronicle of Philanthropy is making its content available free to its Twitter followers until September 9, 2009. - K

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Tory Messina, Pro Bono Net's New York Program Coordinator, has accepted a position as the Cohen Fellow at the Toll Public Interest Center at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her last day is Friday, September 4.

So starting September 7, Pro Bono Net has an opening for a Pro Bono and Special Initiatives Coordinator, who will "spearhead pro bono recruitment campaign and support and maintain partnerships with nonprofit legal aid organizations in New York and nationally building legal resource web sites to serve pro bono, legal aid and human rights advocates." The position is full-time and based in New York, where people frequently bring in donuts and German chocolate. Applications should be sent to jobs@probono.net by September 25.

I'd be remiss if I didn't add that the person in this position gets to work with both Matthew and I as well as the rest of the great staff at Pro Bono Net and a lot of talented, knowledgeable people from legal aid and pro bono communities nationally.  - K

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Legal Services of Northern California announced today that the approved final evaluation report for The Findability Project is now available. (More information about The Findability Project is available from Technola at LSNC Launches "Findability Project" and LSNTAP Roundtable on Findability and the Google Search Paradigm.) - K

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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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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

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Jayne Cravens, a leader in the non-profit technology space, is updating The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, which looks at best practices for working with and supporting online volunteers.

As part of the process, she's gathering information about what tools organizations have used to support online volunteers--people who provide "some kind of work support without pay to a nonprofit organization, community-based group (such as a school), or government initiative focused on the community (such as a city-sponsored park cleanup)." So if you've been a volunteer or worked with volunteers, please take a minute to complete her survey and let her know about your experience. - K

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Prior to 2004, I had a routine for most mornings when I arrived at work. I'd sit down, open up my e-mail, glance at what had come in over night, and then quickly browse through the websites that I got my news from. Larger sites like CNN.com always had new information, but often the smaller sites were updated irregularly. Checking these sites daily was a waste of time, but if I didn't check regularly, I'd forget and miss out on some of the best information and resources.

But somewhere around 2004, I was introduced to Sage, a feed reader that integrates with Mozilla Firefox. It let me bookmark a website's feed, and no longer did I have to go to each individual site. With the click of a couple of buttons, I knew which sites had new content and which didn't. My whole routine changed for the better. I was able to scan content and identify what I wanted to read more quickly. I was also able to add more sites to my list and keep up with content from a wider variety of sources.

At some point in 2008, after some urging by Matthew and participating in an LSNTAP training about feed readers and RSS, I switched over to Google Reader, which has a few more features than Sage and helps me manage my growing list of bookmarked feeds better.

Who else out there uses a feed reader? What made you start?

For those of you who don't use a feed reader, what's stopping you? If it's that

• you don't understand the lingo, check out Huh? RSS? What?, a previous Technola post.
• you don't see why it would be helpful, check out Using RSS Tools to Feed Your Information Needs and More RSS: Using Google Reader for Research and Sharing, both from Idealware.
• you don't know how to set up a feed reader, check out LSNTAP's RSS Walkthrough.
• you don't know what to subscribe to, download and import this file, which includes some of Technola's favorite feeds, into your feed reader. (Hint: Right click and choose Save Link As.) Google has instructions on importing OPML files into Google Reader, and more information about OPML files is available from Idealware.
• you are afraid that you'll get overwhelmed? Remember--you don't have to read it all. - K

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Unless you are one of the lucky few in the access-to-justice community with a real document management system, there's a chance that you are still forced to come up with your own file names and put those documents in folders, like me. This not an easy task. If you look in my folders, at the top level you'll currently find files named "Hello.doc," "projects.doc," and "states.xls"--not particularly noteworthy names. I pity the person who has to go through my files if I get hit by a bus.

For those of you who struggle to name files appropriately like I do, check out Get-It-Done Guy's podcast on file naming conventions. He provides some great, easy recommendations to improve how you name files. - K

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The authors of The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell, have recently launched a companion blog and wiki that are well worth checking out if you're interested in learning how to better utilize technology to support collaboration as a lawyer or legal advocate. I happen to own the book, but I would recommend that you check out the blog and the wiki before you run out and buy it, as many of the tools covered in the book are also featured there. -M

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It's a simple fact: no one feels like they have enough time to do everything that they want to do. Plenty of time managers have systems guaranteed to help us be more effective and efficient, but usually it means that we have to make a huge change to how we currently work. And change isn't easy, especially if you feel like you already are struggling to keep you head above water.

Alison Paul, who manages to cram an amazing amount into each day, passed along a great article that points out 25 Painless Ways to Free Up an Hour a Day for Your Goals. While each of these requires you to change, most of them are small changes -- stop checking your e-mail constantly, consolidate errands, or watch less TV -- and mean that you'll free up some of your time to do what you really want to do. Granted the items that will make the most difference, for example re-examining your priorities or saying "no", are slightly more difficult. But maybe, as a reward for getting things done and being more efficient, your boss might support the idea letting your leave early if you finish your essential work?

And for those of you who are like me and just can't get up early, I found a post in the comments that highlights How to Wake Up Early, Refreshed, and Excited. Evidently, hitting snooze repeatedly is not the first step. - K

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LSC recently released its 2007 Fact Book, which contains a wealth of information on client demographics, private attorney involvement and staffing at LSC-funded organizations. According the Fact Book, there were 116 full-time IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations in 2007, with an average salary of $50,959 (comparable to that of a Staff Attorney at $51,680).

Only 30% of IT Managers were women, which is just slightly higher than the overall percentage of women in professional IT industry positions (26% in 2007, according to the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology). Comparatively, women at LSC-funded organizations represented approximately 82% of Paralegals, 67% of Staff Attorneys, 60% of Supervising Attorneys, 54% of Managing Attorneys, 48% of Deputy Directors, and (notice a trend here?) 32% of Executive Directors.

With regards to race, approximately 62% of IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations in 2007 were Caucasian, 14% African American, 14% Latino, 8% Asian/Pacific Islander and 3% Native American. In 2004, African Americans made up approximately 9% of the overall professional IT workforce, Asians 9% and Latinos just under 6% (NCWIT 2007 Scorecard). Finally, about 8% of IT Managers at LSC-funded organizations were attorneys and their average number of years in the profession was 13.3 (3.3 years longer than the average Staff Attorney and 4.9 years less than the average Supervising Attorney). -M

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I've been collecting lots of little bits and pieces of information with the hope of turning them into full blog posts, but I haven't. So today, instead of depriving you of these valuable tidbits any longer, I'm throwing open the doors and inviting you to enjoy the smorgasbord.

• 100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You've Never Heard Of. This site links to a long list of reference sites. You'll find the typical links to dictionaries and quotation references, but you'll also find resources that cover prescriptions and illnesses, technology concepts, and pop culture. (Thanks to Kevin Wenzel for passing this along.)
• Texans on Justice. Check out the submissions in the State Bar of Texas's YouTube video contest. Participants were asked to create videos on the theme "Texans capturing the promise of justice for all."
• Recent Studies on Pro Bono Practice in the US. The Legal Ethics Forum summarizes a Law & Society conference panel on pro bono.
• Sources for Congressional Voting Records. Idealware has posted links to sources for congressional voting records to make your research a bit easier.
• Public Interest Legal Technology Resources. The ABA Site-tation posted descriptions of the major legal aid technology resources and players.  - K

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From Brian Lawlor, Regional Counsel at LSNC:

Legal Services of Northern California has launched the Findability Project, a TIG-funded initiative to demonstrate how a Google Search Appliance, integrated with a SharePoint Server, can be used as a core technology for implementing enterprise-level search, and as the basic building block of an organization-wide knowledge-content system.

To keep up-to-date with the project be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed here. For more background, go here. We'll be following this project closely, and look forward to hearing from others who are implementing internal knowledge management and content sharing platforms at their organizations. (For example, using a wiki to share documents with a funder prior to a site visit.) -M

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My friend, John, pointed out this interesting image of how a wiki can simplify collaboration. It really hit home for me. Perhaps it can help you in your battle to get your colleagues to start using wikis. - K

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Challenge number one of placing novice attorneys in remote offices - supervision. And what you've been doing to supervise those attorneys may not being cutting it, according to the Maryland Court of Appeals. E-mail and phone are not enough according to Chief Judge Robert Bell. He says, "You don't rely simply on the electronic record. You must check the docket." To read more about this case, check out the ABA Journal or The Daily Record.

So what does this mean for your organization? How do you supervise advocates in remote offices? How does technology play a role in that supervision? Leave a comment below and let us know. - K

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An interesting article by Charles W. Ormsby Jr. for The Legal Intelligencer, which argues that law firm technology management should be left to IT professionals (or a managed services provider), not lawyers:

...we recently had our annual retreat where, in years past, a significant part of the agenda was devoted to technology problems and issues. Since we moved to the managed IT services approach, we have dedicated more of our agenda to discussions on growing the firm and evolving our capabilities, not keeping our PCs up and running.

-M

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Montana Legal Services Association was highlighted in a recent Idealware article. Written by Michelle Murain (who you can follow on Twitter) and Laura Quinn, the article discusses three project management software packages (Basecamp, Central Desktop, and Trac) and how they have been implemented by three different non-profits. The article is a quick read that gives concrete ideas for how to use the software as well as what the organizations have found to be useful and not so useful. - K

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That's right, it's Free Friday, a new technola feature that highlights free - as in free beer - tech tools and resources. This week, a few free web-based project management tools to help keep those milestones in check:

• Project2Manage - A free, web-based project management solution that offers multiple levels of permissions for different clients & users, unlimited projects and the ability to post messages, manage tasks, develop to-do lists and create milestones.
• Google Sites - Google Sites is another great free project management option, particularly given its seamless integration with other Google apps, like Google Calendar and Google Docs. Here's an example (from Google) of a project management site using Google Sites.
• CentralDesktop - While only a limited version of CentralDesktop is free, this may be a good choice if you want to get your feet wet with a web-based project management solution with a lot of bells and whistles. The free version is limited to 2 workspaces, 5 users per workspace and 25MB of total storage space.
• ZOHO Projects - Like CentralDesktop, only a limited version of ZOHO Projects is free. Compared to CentralDesktop, you get more storage (100MB) and more users (unlimited), but less projects (only one). -M

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Recently, Aspiration and Idealware announced a Managing Non-Profit Technology Projects event for Oakland, CA on May 20, 2008 to May 21, 2008. Participants in this event will discuss project management tools and best practices. Registration information is available on Aspiration's website.

I highly recommend attending, especially if you are an accidental project manager. In January 2008, I went to the first Managing Non-Profit Technology Projects event in New York City and got to participate in great conversations about how much websites should cost, how to manage consultants and vendors, and how to collaborate with remote teams. Coming out of the event, I had new resources to help me manage the projects that I'm involved in, including a wiki that contains notes on all of the sessions.

If you aren't able to attend, sign up for the wiki anyways. You'll be able to read the session notes and benefit from the thoughts of the people who did go. - K

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One of the best free resources available to nonprofit technologists is idealware, a site that provides informative reviews and comparisons of nonprofit software. Articles that may be of interest to folks in the legal aid community include:

• Donate Now: Selecting an Online Donation Tool
• Getting Started with Blogging Software
• A Few Good Low-Cost Constituent Databases
• A Few Good Email Newsletter Tools
• A Few Good Event Registration Tools
• Six Views of Project Management Software
• Grants Management Software: Survey Results and Analysis
• A Few Good Accounting Packages

If you like what you see, be sure to subscribe to their monthly newsletter and check out their blog. -M

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