Macfarlane: Empirical Study of the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants in Canada

Professor Dr. Julie Macfarlane of the University of Windsor has published The National Self-Represented Litigants Project: Identifying and Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants: Final Report (2013).

The report states the findings of an empirical study of the needs of pro se litigants in courts in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.

Findings are based on one-on-one or focus-group interviews with “259 self-represented litigants” (SRLs) and 107 legal service providers.

Although the sample is not a probability sample, “the characteristics of the SRL sample are broadly representative of the general Canadian population.”

The principal findings regarding information are as follows (I’ve added bulleted lists for ease of reading):

Regarding court forms:

The most common complaints include:

• difficulty knowing which form(s) to use;
• apparently inconsistent information from court staff/judges;
• difficulty with the language used on forms; and
• the consequences of mistakes including adjournments and more wasted time and stress.

Regarding online legal resources:

[SRLs] identified the following weaknesses:

• an emphasis on substantive legal information and an absence of information on practical tasks like:
• filing or serving,
• advice on negotiation or a strategy for talking to the other side,
• presentation techniques, or [...]
• legal procedure;
• [online legal resources] often directed them to other sites (sometimes with broken links) with inconsistent information; and
• multiplicity of sites with no means of differentiating which is the most “legitimate”.

Cynthia Eagan [a member of the research team] found many of the same problems when she audited a selection of on-line Court Guides [... as well as problems concerning:]

• the reading levels of some of this material (as high as 13.5), and
• the heavy use of jargon and unexplained legal terms.

Regarding legal information for SRLs:

• SRL’s in the study frequently described themselves as seeking “guidance” rather than “direction”.
• The most common source of legal information for SRL’s are court staff [...]
• [SRLs] complained about the restrictions on the time and scope of information that these staff can offer, because of:
• the limitation on their providing “legal advice”[...] or [...]
• the sheer volume of people they are dealing with.
• The distinction between legal information/legal advice which lies at the heart of the job descriptions of staff working on the court counters and in information services is consistently complained about by both SRL’s and staff, as at best unclear and at worst practically unworkable [...]

Regarding access to legal services:

[...] many SRL’s sought some type of “unbundled” legal services from legal counsel; for example:

• assistance with document review,
• writing a letter, or
• appearing in court [...]

For the recommendations and additional information, please see the complete report and the project’s Website.

Funding for the project was provided by the Law Foundation of Ontario, the Alberta Law Foundation, and the Law Foundation of British Columbia/Legal Services Society of British Columbia.

Please see the comments to this post for events and other information related to the report.

Georgetown Iron Tech Lawyer Competition 2013: Tweets and Resources

This post contains links to tweets and other resources from the 2013 Georgetown Iron Tech Lawyer Competition: Access to Justice Edition, held 17 April 2013 at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, USA.

Click here for the event’s Webpage.

The event was organized by Professor Tanina Rostain and Adjunct Professor Roger V. Skalbeck, both of Georgetown University Law Center, as part of their practicum entitled Technology, Innovation and Legal Practice Practicum – Access to Justice.

Here is a description of the event, from the event Website:

Students in the [practicum] have heard from a range of experts on topics relating to law practice innovation enabled by technology. Students work in small teams for a legal service organization to develop a platform, application or automated system that increases access to justice and/or improves the effectiveness of legal representation. These organizations include civil rights organizations, direct service providers and government agencies. The students will be presenting their final projects in Georgetown Law’s “Iron Tech Lawyer Competition.” A panel of judges, made up of two Georgetown Law faculty members and two outside experts, will decide which is the best platform, program or expert system designed in the class.

The Twitter hashtag for the event was #IronTechLawyer

Click here for archived Twitter tweets from the event, in .csv format.

Video of the event will soon be available here, according to a notice on that page.

Neota Logic, a sponsor of the event, wrote a preliminary post about the event entitled less than one month until iron tech lawyer competition at georgetown law center.

For additional resources about the event, please see the comments to this post.

Click here for information about the 2012 Georgetown Iron Tech Lawyer Competition.

ReInventLaw Channel: Videos of Talks at ReInventLaw Events

The ReInventLaw Channel is now available, providing access to videos of presentations given at ReInventLaw conferences.

The presentations cover topics including innovation in legal technology and legal services delivery.

The channel currently includes videos of presentations given at ReInventLaw Silicon Valley 2013 and LawTechCamp London 2012.

The channel is produced by the ReInventLaw Lab at Michigan State University College of Law.

HT @computational

Archived Tweets from Legal Services Corporation Technology Summit 2013

Twitter tweets from the Legal Services Corporation Technology Summit 2013 are archived here in .csv format.

The event was held 14-15 January 2013 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

The focus of the event was technology for access to justice.

The Twitter hashtag for the event was #lsctech

Here is a description of the event:

The second session of LSC’s Summit on the Use of Technology to Enhance Access to Justice will focus on implementing the technology vision developed during the June 2012 Summit. The Summit will bring together selected technology experts, academics, private practitioners, and representatives of legal services programs, courts, and governmental and business entities.

This event will be followed by the LSC Technology Initiative Grant Conference, being held 16-18 January 2013, which focuses on technologies developed or applied in the access to justice context, by recipients of grants from the LSC.

The Twitter hashtag for the LSC TIG conference is #lsctig

Click here for the program for the LSC Technology Initiative Grant Conference 2013.

HT @DigitalLawyer

Glassmeyer: CALI partners with law schools to build online tools for low-income litigants

Sarah Glassmeyer, JD, MLS, of CALI has posted Law Schools Team Up with CALI to Harness Skills of Law Students, Develop Online Tools for Low-Income Litigants, at the CALI Blog.

The post contains a press release, which begins:

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI®) will announce at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in New Orleans on January 6, 2013 that they have reached agreements with faculty members from six law schools to develop course kits as part of the Access to Justice Clinical Course Project (A2J Clinic Project). Participating law schools include Columbia Law School, Concordia University School of Law, CUNY School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, UNC School of Law, and University of Miami School of Law.

Each participating faculty member will develop and document a course model that uses A2J Author® to teach law students how technology tools can be used to lower barriers to justice for low-income, self-represented litigants. CALI will use those course models to assist other law schools in establishing A2J Clinical Courses as a permanent part of their law school curriculum.

A2J Author is a software tool developed by CALI and the Center for Access to Justice & Technology at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law to deliver greater access to justice for self-represented litigants by enabling lawyers and law students to rapidly build user-friendly web-based document assembly tools called A2J Guided Interviews®. These A2J Guided Interviews allow users to complete court documents by presenting a series of easy-to-understand questions while graphics virtually lead users along the path to the courthouse, where these documents can be filed. [...]

HT @caliorg

Johnson on the Future of Technology and Access to Justice

Claudia C. Johnson, Esq., of ProBonoNet has posted The Technology Future, on Richard Zorza’s Access to Justice Blog.

This lengthy and interesting post covers a very large number of topics regarding how technological innovation is likely to influence legal aid services. Professor Dr. Daniel Martin Katz’s work on quantitative legal prediction is cited.

HT @rzorza

Lawler et al.: Opportunities and Limitations in the Provision of Self-Help Legal Resources to Citizens in Need

Merran Lawler, LLB, JD, Professor Dr. Jeff Giddings, and Michael Robertson, all of Griffith University Law School, have published Opportunities and Limitations in the Provision of Self-Help Legal Resources to Citizens in Need, Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2012.

Here is the abstract:

This article considers the utility of resources designed to assist people undertaking their own legal work. Four in-depth case studies are used to explore the tensions inherent in providing coherent and user-oriented resources to legal self-helpers in environments where service providers attempt to convey complex legal information, knowledge and skills to people at the point of legal exigency. The needs of the consumer for basic process oriented and solutions focused resources do not always coincide with the objectives of providers to impart sufficient legal knowledge, information and skills to allow the consumer to work through those processes as an informed citizen.

Call for Proposals: ReInventLaw Dubai 2012: An ‘Un’conference on Law, Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

A call for presentation proposals — with submission deadline of 15 October 2012 — has been issued for ReInventLaw Dubai 2012: “an ‘un’conference devoted to law, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship” — to be held 10 December 2012 at Media City in Dubai.

The organizers particularly welcome presentations about innovations in legal services or legal education. Presentations can take the form of 6 Minute Ignite Style Presentations or 12 Minute “TED Style” Presentations.

Registration is free.

The event Website describes the event as follows:

ReInvent Law Dubai is an “un”conference devoted to law, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Anyone interested in the future of law or technology or entrepreneurship will want to participate. Come hear about the innovative ideas generated by the highly-engaging atmosphere of the event!

The event is being sponsored by The ReInventLaw Laboratory at Michigan State University College of Law, and is modeled on the LawTechCamp London 2012 event held last summer.

For more information, please see the ReInventLaw Dubai 2012 Website.

HT @computational.

Technology Improving Access to Legal Information in Developing Countries

The Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law has posted Smart ways to deliver the legal information people really need, at the HiiL Insights blog:

This post describes a number of recent technological and process innovations that are increasing access to justice in developing nations.

Among the innovations and resources covered are:

• Joyce Hakmeh‘s work on Legal information building and sharing in the Arab world
• Online legal document assembly services, like LegalZoom
• SMS-based legal information services such as Frontline SMS Legal
• “Microjustice” projects such as Microjustice Kenya

ReInvent Law Dubai 2012: Unconference on Law, Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

ReInvent Law Dubai 2012: Unconference on Law, Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship will be held 10 December 2012 at Dubai Knowledge Village, Dubai, UAE, according to an announcement at Computational Legal Studies.

The event’s organizers will be Professor Dr. Daniel Martin Katz and Professor Renee Newman Knake, both of the Michigan State University College of Law and its new ReInvent Law Laboratory.

According to the event brochure:

ReInvent Law Dubai is an (un)conference focusing on law, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. Building upon the success of the recent London event, leaders in the fields of law, technology and beyond will come together to share ideas about innovation in the delivery of legal services.

This event is Free, Open and Participatory. Anyone can propose a topic. Entrepreneurs, new media/technology enthusiasts, legal professionals, social networkers, and those curious about future innovation in law and technology will want to attend.

The Michigan State University College of Law Graduate Program at MSU Dubai is a primary sponsor.

For more information, please see the announcement.

HT @computational.