McDonald on Client-Centered Innovation in Access to Justice

Sean Martin McDonald, JD, MA, of FrontlineSMS and FrontlineSMS:Legal has posted The Future of Law is No Field of Dreams, at the Innovating Justice Blog.

He writes:

By including user input in the evolution of legal services, we can overcome the practical barriers to access, reaching billions of new clients and fulfilling the promises of equality made in our constitutions, treaties, and oaths.

For more information, please see the complete post.

Mr. McDonald discusses this topic at greater length in his VoxPopuLII post entitled Law in the Last-Mile: The Potential of Mobile Integration into Legal Services.

New on VoxPopuLII: McDonald on Law in the Last-Mile: The Potential of Mobile Integration into Legal Services

Sean Martin McDonald, JD, MA, of FrontlineSMS and FrontlineSMS:Legal has posted Law in the Last-Mile: The Potential of Mobile Integration into Legal Services, on the VoxPopuLII blog, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.

In this post, Mr. McDonald describes the obstacles preventing many people in developing countries from accessing legal services. He then argues that new technologies, based on text messaging via mobile phones, can overcome many of these obstacles and substantially improve access to justice for low-income persons. He describes one such technology, FrontlineSMS:Legal, which uses text messaging to improve legal client intake and referral, client and case management, and caseload allocation functions for organizations offering legal services to individuals in developing nations.

This post should be of interest to the access-to-justice community, the information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) community, developers of mobile technology, and the legal technology community.

Whittal on Using Mobile Phones for Land Registries for the Urban Poor

Professor Dr. Jennifer Whittal of the University of Cape Town School of Architecture, Planning, and Geomatics has published The Potential Use of Cellular Phone Technology in Maintaining an Up-To-Date Register of Land Transactions for the Urban Poor, Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal / Potchefstroom Elektroniese Regstydskrif, 14 (3), 162-194 (2011). Here is the abstract:

This article investigates the concept of using cell-phone technology for obtaining information about unofficial (off-register) transfers in land as are commonly undertaken by the urban poor in South Africa. Since the introduction of social housing programmes in South Africa after the democratic elections in 1994, mass land distribution and housing projects have been undertaken. Formal transfer of these properties has been discouraged by policy (such as a moratorium on transfers for a period of years), and the inaccessibility of land professionals and formal processes to the poor. From the disuse of formal transfer mechanisms one can conclude that these fail, at least in part, to meet the needs of this segment of society. Cell- (mobile) phone technology penetrates urban poverty more than other interactive technologies such as the internet, largely due to the lack of access to computers and the ‘digital divide’. The aim of this article is exploratory. It investigates the potential use of cell-phone technology as a means to inform authorities that a transfer of property has taken place informally or semi-formally. Such information could pave the way for a process of formal registration and hence aid the upkeep of the deeds registration system. Research into the potential use of the cell-phone as an information and communication technology (ICT) tool of land administration, particularly in the developing world, is undertaken. It is envisaged that a more detailed investigation will follow, which will include an analysis of organisational and legislative capacity. Further study in which the use of cell-phone technology in land administration is tested, taking into consideration structural/organisational factors as well as socio-economic and cultural factors and motivating factors for use, may be required.

HT @jcdonner.

Krontiris on Mobile Justice

Kate Krontiris of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the MIT Sloan School of Management has released two new posts on the topic of “mobile justice”: Mobile Justice in 500 Words, and On the Many Manifestations of “Mobile Justice,” on her tumblr.

In the first post, Ms. Krontiris defines “mobile justice” as “the idea that mobile technologies, broadly defined, can be used to extend and improve access to justice.” She states that the term “includes initiatives such as virtual courts in Kenya, live-streamed court proceedings in Massachusetts, and SMS-sharing of legal judgments in Ghana”; and that mobile justice efforts are being undertaken by governments, civil society organizations, and businesses, and “almost always require the strong collaboration of all of these stakeholders.” The post goes on to discuss how mobile justice initiatives are being used in the reform of judicial processes, and may contribute to improving the rule of law and human rights enforcement in many jurisdictions.

In the second post, Ms. Krontiris discusses private mobile justice providers. The post focuses on Crimefighters, a “[c]onfidential information hotline” — offered in Ghana by mobile phone company MTN — that enables citizens to report crimes via mobile phone, free of charge. With MTN as an example, the post discusses “the emerging role of private actors in resourcing public” justice information and communication services.

These posts follow on Ms. Krontiris’s 2010 post on mobile justice, Using Technology to Bridge the Gap, at the U.S. Department of State’s DipNote blog, and her 2010 post, On the Potential of Mobile Justice, at Huffington Post.

Open, Generative, and User Centered: The Potential of SMS-Based Legal Technology for Development

My new article, entitled Open, Generative, and User Centered: The Potential of SMS-Based Legal Technology for Development, has been published in Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 6(1), 63-68 (2011), doi: 10.1162/INOV_a_00058. (Click here for an open access version of the article.) Here is a summary:

For those desiring to create user-centered means of improving access to justice for low-income citizens of developing countries, SMS-based systems seem extremely promising. Development of such systems seems consistent with several trends in legal technology, including the unbundling of legal services, the empowering of legal clients, the prioritizing of citizens’ legal information needs and access capabilities in the design process, and the use of open source software. Further, legal-practice systems rooted in text-message technology could be extended to encompass a range of innovative law-related services and functions, including interactive document creation, e-filing of court documents, information retrieval, survey data collection, and online conferral with non-lawyers who possess relevant legal knowledge. By “meet[ing clients] where they are” and cultivating open systems, developers of open-source, SMS-based legal technologies such as mLegal exhibit great potential to enhance access to justice for low-income individuals in developing nations.

The article is a response to: Sean McDonald, Esq., The Case for mLegal, Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 6(1), 41-62 (2011), doi: 10.1162/INOV_a_00057 (Click here for open access version). Many thanks to Sean for the opportunity to contribute this article.

McDonald on mLegal: Mobile Legal Technology for Developing Nations

Sean Martin McDonald, Esq., of Frontline SMS and Frontline SMS: Legal, has published The Case for mLegal, Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 6(1), 41-62 (2011), doi: 10.1162/INOV_a_00057. (Click here for an open access version of the article.) Here is a summary:

While there are a number of obstacles [facing citizens of developing countries] to accessing legal systems, many of them are the result of barriers to communication. SMS is the world’s cheapest, most ubiquitous data communications platform, in large part, because it overcomes many of these barriers. Through simple pieces of open-source software, legal service providers could use SMS interfaces to keep digital records, conduct basic remote intake, and improve client management, reducing costs at a time when every cent counts. This article is an exploration of the potential role of mobile technologies in the extension and improvement of the rule of law.

Click here for Sean’s post about the article, on the Frontline SMS: Legal blog.

New on Slaw.ca: Indian Kanoon: Sushant Sinha on Innovation and Free Law in India

Dr. Sushant Sinha‘s free access to law service for India, Indian Kanoon, is the subject of my new, in-depth article on Slaw.ca, the Canadian legal blog.

The article provides a great deal of detailed information about Indian Kanoon, including information on technology and open source, users and usage, business models and sustainability, partnerships, product differentiation, advertising, Indian Kanoon‘s online forums, and Dr. Sinha’s innovative concept of “the thirst for law”: the idea, first expressed in Dr. Sinha’s recent VoxPopuLII post, that free access to law online stimulates the public’s demand for such access, in a virtuous circle.

The post also describes Indian Kanoon‘s new partnership with PRS Legislative Research, in which Indian Kanoon is adding to its content full text of the debates of the Parliament of India, which PRS will then use in providing legislative history and research services to members of India’s national and state parliaments. This partnership exemplifies how civil-society-based free-access-to-law services can function as “extensions” of e-Government, consistent with the vision set out by Robinson et al., in Government Data and the Invisible Hand.

I’m very grateful to Dr. Sinha for taking time for extensive interviews that provided the content of the article.

New on VoxPopuLII: Moncion on New Research About Legal Information Institutes

Isabelle Moncion of the Chair in Legal Information of the University of Montreal, and Lexum, has posted Building Sustainable LIIs – or Free Access to Law as Seen Through the Eyes of a Newbie, on the VoxPopuLII Blog, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.

In this post, Ms. Moncion describes two IDRC-funded studies into the use and sustainability of legal information institutes — sites that offer free Internet access to the full text of primary legal information — in Asia, West Africa, and Southern Africa. The studies are being conducted by the Chair in Legal Information of the University of Montreal.

The first study addresses the use of, and potential demand for, legal information institutes in four West African countries: Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The second study concerns the sustainability of legal information institutes, in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa.

Ms. Moncion’s post discusses the methodology and summarizes preliminary findings of the studies.

This post will be of interest to advocates of access to justice and to government information, and to the legal publishing community, as well as to those who study information and communications technology for development (ICT4D).

[Editor's Note: The original version of this post contained an error. The original version of the post stated that the studies described in the post are being conducted by Lexum and the Chair in Legal Information of the University of Montreal. That information is incorrect. The studies described in the post are being conducted solely by the Chair in Legal Information of the University of Montreal. Lexum has no role in the studies. We regret the error. The post has been corrected as of 5 May 2011.]

Iyengar on Free Access to Law in India

Prashant Iyengar of Alternative Law Forum and the Center for Internet and Society, has posted the abstract of his 2010 report on free access to law in India, entitled Free Access to Law: Is It Here to Stay? India, Country Report (July 2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Sometime in early 2008, Sushant Sinha, an Indian computer science doctoral candidate from Michigan University began offering free access to decisions of the Indian Supreme Court via his website IndianKanoon.org (IK) . In the ensuing two years, IK has grown exponentially and has become one of the most popular websites for accessing Indian legal materials, hosting over 1.2 million documents at the time of this writing. This paper is styled as a ‘case study’ that probes the IndianKanoon story – its genesis, successes and impacts – in some detail. This is also a paper that interrogates the conditions that make a site like IndianKanoon possible. It seeks an answer to the question: Viewed from what frame do the actions of one man unilaterally deciding to host over a million legal documents online for free become sensible?

For the full text of the report, please contact Mr. Iyengar.

Dr. Sinha recently described his system, Indian Kanoon, in a post at VoxPopuLII.

Mr. Iyengar recently wrote about free access to law in India, and about his free law system, OpenJudis, in a post at VoxPopuLII.

New on VoxPopuLII: Sinha on Indian Kanoon: The Genesis and the Legal Thirst

Dr. Sushant Sinha of Yahoo! India has posted Indian Kanoon: The Genesis and the Legal Thirst, on the VoxPopuLII Blog, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.

In this post, Dr. Sinha describes the origins and development of Indian Kanoon, the free legal search engine for India, for which Dr. Sinha was recently named one of “18 Young Innovators under 35 in India” by MIT’s Technology Review India.

Indian Kanoon provides free online access to Indian statutes, judicial and administrative decisions, debates of India’s constituent assemblies, reports of the Indian Law Commission, and articles from selected law journals. Indian Kanoon also hosts several discussion forums, in which users can ask and receive responses to questions concerning substantive legal issues or Indian Kanoon‘s functionality.

In his post, Dr. Sinha identifies as the principal goal of Indian Kanoon the “empower[ment of] citizens” by enabling them to become informed about “their rights and privileges” under the law.

Dr. Sinha observes that the number of visitors to Indian Kanoon is extremely large and steadily rising; and that the average visitor to Indian Kanoon spends substantial time viewing each retrieved document. Dr. Sinha concludes that these data indicate a growing demand among the Indian people for access to the law — a demand he calls The Legal Thirst — and considers possible causes for this increasing demand.

Dr. Sinha suggests that two factors in particular — the provision of access to law free of charge, and improvements in search technology, including “forgiving” keyword search functionality and the ranking of results by relevance — are fueling the desire of the Indian public to read the full text of the laws that govern them.

Dr. Sinha’s post will be of interest to legal information systems developers, legal publishers, the ICT for development community, and all those interested in the free access to law movement.