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

Yesterday, April 18, marked the start of National Volunteer Week, a national celebration of people who are volunteering and improving their communities. Thousands of projects and special events have been scheduled to recognize existing volunteers and encourage others to become involved. This year marks the thirty-sixth National Volunteer Week, an event that was established by former President Richard Nixon in 1974 and is sponsored by Points of Light Institute and HandsOn Network.

As this week progresses, I suspect that you'll see communities leveraging technology to promote volunteerism and events for volunteers. Already few examples exist:

• Blogging: The Case Foundation summarized the history of service in the US on its blog. And in our own community, Pro Bono Net has invited guests to blog about pro bono legal services on their Martindale-Hubbell Connected group. The first post "An Opportunity to Serve Those Who Serve Us" from Jason Vail of the ABA Military Pro Bono Project is also posted on Pro Bono Net's website. 
• Videos: Chapters of the HandsOn Network, the American Cancer Society, and the American Red Cross created videos to thank their volunteers. HandsOn Network also put together a video to promote National Volunteer Week.

If this celebration makes you want to get involved, check out the National Pro Bono Opportunities Guide for local legal aid organizations and pro bono programs that need help. Other non-legal opportunities are listed on the HandsOn Network website.

Are you doing anything to celebrate your volunteers this week? If so, what? Let us know below. - K

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As part of their year-end fundraising campaign, Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO) has created a video that does a fantastic job of highlighting the potential of technology to help increase access to justice for low and moderate-income individuals. It focuses on LiveHelp, a project funded by the Legal Services Corporation, supported by Pro Bono Net, and originally piloted by Montana Legal Services Association and Iowa Legal Aid, which was recently launched in Illinois to assist those in need of legal help find quality free legal information, forms, and referrals. As the video portrays, in less than a month ILAO and their remote law student volunteers assisted over 1,300 users. It’s an excellent example how the innovative use of technology can help to mobilize volunteers, increase access to services, and ultimately address the unmet legal needs facing so many low and moderate-income Americans. Please consider donating to justice innovators like Illinois Legal Aid Online and Pro Bono Net this holiday season. Without them, projects like LiveHelp wouldn’t exist. -M

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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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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 April, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati sent the legal community into a tizzy when they launched a tool that lets the public generate contract term sheets. But today, the New York State Unified Court System and Legal Assistance of Western New York (LawNY) topped WSGR's term sheet generator.

Justice Fern A. Fisher, Director of the New York State Courts Access to Justice Program and C. Kenneth Perri, Executive Director of Legal Assistance of Western New York announced the release of three new computer programs that will help New Yorkers navigate the legal system. These DIY (Do It Yourself) programs ask straight-forward questions to help users prepare individualized court forms and instructions. (Read the full press release.)

Now self-represented litigants can get help filling out a Support Modification Petition for Family Court, the Small Estates Affidavit for Surrogate's Court, and the Adult Name Change Petition for Supreme Court online.

As a warning, I am a bit biased. I've been working with the New York Courts on this project for almost three years as part of my day job at Pro Bono Net. So I'm particularly excited to see it launch! - K

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Have you been watching the work of Pro Bono Net, wanting to get more involved? Well, now is your chance. Pro Bono Net has a position open for a CTC VISTA, who will work with PBN staff on immigration related projects.

A year as an Americorps VISTA is a great experience. My first year in the legal aid community was as a VISTA with Montana Legal Services Association. I got to do interesting, meaningful work with great people. And that year started me down a career path that I likely wouldn't have found otherwise.

That said, being a VISTA isn't for everyone. It's not a job. You are a volunteer for a year and receive a stipend of about $11,000 as well as a few other benefits for your service. You can't attend school or have another job at the same time. The idea is that while you are working to eliminate poverty, you live among those you are serving.

Still interested? For more information about Pro Bono Net's position, check out their posting on the CTC VISTA site. - K

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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

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"A new Web site launched by four national legal organizations will help victims of disasters find valuable information and assistance to speed recovery from hurricanes, fires, floods or other disasters. The site is sponsored by the American Bar Association, Legal Services Corporation, National Legal Aid & Defender Association and Pro Bono Net." You can read the full press release here and visit the new site here. -M

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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

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As Kate mentioned in an earlier post, I spent most of last week in Johannesburg, South Africa on a site visit with the Southern Africa Litigation Center, which is using the Pro Bono Net template to support their work providing technical legal assistance and litigation support to advocates in the region who are working on media defense and freedom of expression issues. Having spent nearly two years in Southern Africa, as a student, teacher, legal advocate and law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, I was excited to reconnect with friends and colleagues and hear about the progress that has been made since I was last there.

Overall I was impressed by the advances made in the legal services sector (having one of the finest constitutions in the world helps). But one area that has yet to come into its own is meaningful access to legal information, which was of course part of the reason for my visit. To that end, I wanted to share a resource that has great potential for developing regions such as Southern Africa: the Rule of Law Resource Center. An initiative of LexisNexis, the Rule of Law Resource Center represents "the single largest, most credible and authoritative collection of Rule of Law resources on the internet."

Among the resources highlighted in the collection is an article by Daniel Poulin entitled "Open access to law in developing countries." Another is an article by Graham Greenleaf called "Legal Information Institutes and the Free Access to Law Movement." And finally, a blog post from Out of the Jungle, which defends the practice of open access archiving. What each of these resources highlights is the need for opening access to free legal information and developing sustainable models for the collection and dissemination of legal information, including a call for more attention to developing countries where the need is arguably the greatest.

I would encourage all of you to take some time to explore these resources. Not only do they provide a compelling framework for more meaningful access to legal information in other countries, they may also teach you something about your own work and how we might provide better access to free legal information in our community. -M

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Creating a quality website with little or no knowledge of HTML or other programming languages is no longer the challenge that it once was. With the evolution of blogging platforms, wikis and other web-based content management systems, you can now build a web presence for your organization or projects with little more than some extra time on your hands. Here are a few free hosted solutions that will put you on your way to a website without having to write a lick of code:

• Blogs: In addition to the popular weblog platforms such as Wordpress and Blogger, check out the tumblelog offerings, which land somewhere between weblogs and micro-blogging sites like Twitter. My current favorite is tumblr, which is extremely easy to use, allows you to post from your mobile device, offers a really nifty Firefox plug-in, and (with a little bit of effort or a free theme) is fully customizable.

• Wikis: Most hosted wikis don't make for particularly good general purpose websites, but wetpaint is an exception. Wetpaint's innovative social publishing platform allows you to effortlessly post and edit text and multimedia content in a wiki-like environment, as well as to easily customize the overall look and feel. If you're looking to build a website to support an online community, and can put up with a few Google ads, wetpaint is a good option.

• Other options: If the blog or wiki platforms above aren't the right fit for your project, consider Google Sites and Roxer. Google Sites, which we've showcased before in a Free Friday post on project management solutions, is somewhat of a hybrid. It supports collaboration (like a wiki) and fairly robust permissioning, but has a more traditional website feel. Roxer, while not big on collaboration, is one of the most innovative hosted website solutions that I've seen. As its website claims, "now anyone can create beautiful websites online in just minutes." It truly takes WYSIWYG to an entirely new level.

Also be sure to check out the recent webinar by LSNTAP and Pro Bono Net on building program websites. In addition to great suggestions on finding the right platform and host, it provides helpful tips and resources on layout, design and incorporating multimedia. Also, for those states using the LawHelp template, ask your Circuit Rider about program sites, which are free to legal aid and public interest organizations. -M

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On Tuesday NPR announced the launch of their new API, which allows users to easily generate custom API calls using an innovative query generator. The API can also return results in RSS, MediaRSS, JSON, Atom and through HTML and JavaScript widgets. For more background visit the Inside NPR.org blog or (for a more critical perspective) check out the related articles on TechCrunch and Mashable.com.

And for those unfamiliar with APIs, here's a nice overview. Examples? Pro Bono Net uses an API to share organizational data from the National Pro Bono Opportunities Guide with the ABA Second Season of Service's Volunteer Opportunity Search Engine, which also includes volunteer opportunities from the ABA National Directory of Law-Related Programs and Idealist.org. This same technology is being piloted to share resources between statewide advocates sites that are built on different templates and into case management systems so that advocates have ready access to resources that are automatically filtered based on a client's legal problem. -M

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This is a post that I've been patiently waiting to write for some time now. The reason: Pam Weisz, PBN's Director of Corporate Sponsorship, would have been upset if I had announced the news ahead of her. So, until now, I've had to keep quiet. But as of today, the press release is out, and I'm free to go ahead. So here it is:

The American Bar Association has recognized Pro Bono Net and several of its partners for contributing to the understanding of professionalism among lawyers and will be presenting them with one of three E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Awards at the ABA Annual Meeting in New York City on August 8.

Pro Bono Net's application focused on how programs are leveraging technology to promote and support pro bono involvement in underserved, frequently rural, regions. Examples include an online pro bono manual in Mississippi that helps lawyers doing volunteer work outside their area of expertise; the use of online mailings tools to place pro bono cases in Wyoming; and pro bono trainings done via webcast in Georgia.

So let's hear it for everyone involved in these efforts. Go team! - K

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There are a lot of ethical questions surrounding the practice of law, so it shouldn't be a shock that a lawyer reads the questions on The Ethicist podcast. But I was surprised when I heard that it was Robin Steinberg, the Executive Director of the Bronx Defenders, reading this week's questions. Among the great projects at Bronx Defenders is Reentry.net/NY, an online clearinghouse and support network that focuses on prisoner rentry issues developed in partnership with Pro Bono Net.

So yea! Congratulations on your newfound fame, Robin. You can check out the podcast here. - K

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Heads up. The LiveHelp Project has been profiled by LivePerson. From their press release:

"LiveHelp has been chosen as a subject of a case study by LivePerson, Inc., a provider of online engagement solutions that facilitate real-time assistance and expert advice. LivePerson's technology is helping legal aid advocates assist underserved communities as part of a joint project with Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to justice."

Check out the case study. - K

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Good news! LawHelp.org earned a Webby nomination again this year. Webby awards are bestowed upon the best of the Net as determined by both the public and a panel of judges. Last year, LawHelp.org won the Webby Award for the Best Law Site in 2007 and came in close behind the winner of the People's Voice award.

An inside source told me that the Pro Bono Net team is pretty excited to be up for a Webby a second time. And they need your help. Help them capture the People's Voice award this year at the People's Voice website. In the famous words from Chicago: "Vote early - and often." And vote here. - K

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