NLADA Report: A Session in Which Kate Speaks (Part 3)

Continuing my report on the NLADA Annual Training Conference sessions . . .

Technology Planning 101 – Jim Dill, Kate Bladow, Glenn Rawdon, Kathleen Brockel
So yes, I was on this panel, but I didn’t really talk that much. The summary of what I had to say? Don’t leave your techies in a room by themselves to create your tech plan. Your plan needs to be based on your organization’s strategic plan, and you need buy in from attorneys, paralegals, administrators, and so on.

After I was through with that introduction, the good stuff started. Jim Dill, the Director of Technology at the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, talked about the statewide technology planning process in Pennsylvania. Less than a year old, his position was established to help the legal aid programs create and implement a statewide technology plan. Jim’s initial goals have been to learn about the programs’ existing infrastructures and needs and to help them to standardize platforms. After these initial steps, he hopes to help them to look at innovative initiatives that could be implemented on a statewide level. A few bits of wisdom that Jim provided the session attendees with:

• Check to see if your state government allows nonprofits to participate in their cooperative purchasing program. (Pennsylvania’s program is called COSTARS.)
• Review your contracts with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) yearly.  Programs may be able to save money by re-negotiating contracts.
• Don’t sign a contract for T1 services for more than a year at a time. The price is likely to decrease, and you don’t want to be stuck in contract if you could be paying less.
• Don’t use consultants for strategic planning. Consultants are good for day-to-day tasks, but in most cases your mission is not their passion.

After some discussion and questions from the audience, Kathleen Brockel shared the results of the LSNTAP technology survey. A few points of interest:

• Programs spend the most on hardware and personnel. If the personnel line is low, it is usually made up by contracts for outside support.
• 99 to 100 percent of programs that responded have the security software necessary to protect their data, except in the case of instant messaging.
• Three-quarters of programs are using document assembly, and 46 percent of programs are using HotDocs.

If you want to check out more of the statistics, you can view Kathleen’s slides on SlideShare.

Glenn was the closing act and discussed planning for document assembly projects. The summary–programs should be using document assembly. Get on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, I was watching for questions and confused looks and didn’t take notes. I would recommend that you check out his slides, which are also on SlideShare. – K

NCSC Releases 20th Anniversary Edition of Future Trends in State Courts

The National Center for State Courts just released its 20th Anniversary Edition of Future Trends in State Courts, which includes an article on online document assembly by Kate Bladow and Claudia Johnson, as well as an article by Richard Zorza on a judicial curriculum and leadership package developed by the Self Represented Litigation Network. Other topics in this edition that may be of interest include website disability access, language access, cultural competency and several articles on court technology. – M

Interactive Court Forms now Available on WashingtonLawHelp.org

The Northwest Justice Project just announced new online interactive court forms for pro se users to file a divorce petition with no minor children of the marriage. Future forms available on WashingtonLawHelp.org will include interviews for finishing your divorce, a domestic violence protection order and a demand letter for return of a rental security deposit. This work is funded by a grant from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and the Washington Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). They use the A2J Author, developed by the Center for Access to Justice & Technology (CAJT) at Chicago-Kent College of Law and the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), LexisNexis’s HotDocs Professional, and the LSC-funded national document assembly server (NPADO), a project of Pro Bono Net. -M

Kate’s Court Solutions Conference Highlights

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Court Leadership Package was launched at the Court Solutions Conference. By my count, around 180 people from across the United States and Canada as well as several other countries attended the Court Leadership and Self-Represented Litigation track.

This was a great conference with ample time for networking and learning. For me, highlights from the conference included the following:

• Being reminded by Joseph Abbate, Senior Management Analyst at the New York Office of Court Administration, that plain language isn’t just used or needed in the legal world. Plenty of other jargon needs to be made readable. He used Google’s promotional materials for their new browser, Chrome, as an example.
• Listening to Jeanette Fedorak, Senior Policy Counsel for the Government of Alberta, assert that most Canadians, low-income and otherwise, can’t afford to hire an attorney. Her argument: In Alberta the cost for a divorce ranges between $16,000 and $128,000 with the average being $44,000. The average income for the lowest 40 percent of Canadians is less than $44,000, and as expected, this group doesn’t have a lot socked away in case of emergencies. The next 20 percent of Canadians aren’t much better off. They make only $54,200 per year, and while their net worth is higher, most of their savings are invested in their house.  Her statistics paint a dismal picture.
• Supping with a group of document assembly enthusiasts at the Rusty Scupper.
• Attending a panel called “Agenda for the Future,” which featured Robert Baldwin, Executive Vice-President and General Counsel of the National Center for State Courts; Chief Justice John T. Broderick, Jr. of the New Hampshire Supreme Court; and Justice Laurie D. Zelon, Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal. It was an inspiring session that I’ll talk more about in another post.
• Lunching post-conference with Richard Zorza, Justice Zelon, and Bonnie Hough, Supervising Attorney for the Center for Families, Children & the Courts for the Judicial Council of California.  All three are amazing access-to-justice advocates. Our conversation reminded me that no significant change happens overnight. It takes work and patience.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend, the materials are now posted on SelfHelpSupport.org. Each of the modules includes slides with speaker’s notes, project profiles, video clips, and activity and resource books.  Also, thanks to Vince Morris, who kindly took on the role of videographer, all of the plenary sessions were filmed and, I hope, will be made available shortly to those who couldn’t attend.

If you only have a little bit of time, I recommend checking out the document assembly module – Deploying Automated Forms for Access. Granted, I might be biased considering my role in pulling the module together, but I think that one is the best. – K

Self-Represented Litigation at Court Solutions Conference

Today is the official launch of the Self-Represented Litigation Network Court Leadership Package, a set of tools that judges, court administrators, self-help facilitators, and others can use to educate their court and state about innovations in self-represented litigation.

Topics that are covered include

• Court Self-Diagnosis and Strategies for Getting a Court Moving (Including Funding Issues)
• Establishing and Operating Self Help Centers
• Designing and Modifying Physical Space for Access
• Establishing Justice Corps and Volunteer Programs
• Training and Supporting Clerks for Access
• Developing and Deploying Forms and Instructions
• Deploying Automated Forms for Access
• Setting Up Case Management for the Self-Represented
• Working with Judicial Leadership
• Courtroom Staffing and Services for Access
• The Court Role in Establishing and Supporting Discrete Task Representation
• Supporting and Integrating Law Library Services
• Distance Service Technology
• The Limited English Proficiency Challenge
• Developing Systems to Facilitate and Ensure Compliance with Court Orders

These tools are being launched at the National Center for State Courts‘ Court Solutions Conference. People who are attending the Self-Represented Litigation Track will be trained to use these tools and have the opportunity to interact with experts and learn more about each of the areas. (For those of you who won’t be in Baltimore at the conference, the materials will be posted on the SelfHelpSupport.org website in the next couple of months.)

If you will be at the conference, find me. I’ll be there and helping out in a variety of roles. – K

Legal Services Corporation and LexisNexis Launch HotDocs® Software Donation Program

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

2008 EJC Materials Now Available Online

Thanks Bill Jones at the ABA, all of the session materials available for 2008 Equal Justice Conference are now online. Materials from the last five years are archived here. Many of the technology related session materials for the 2008 Conference are also available on LSNTAP. Next year’s conference is scheduled for May 14-16, 2009, in Orlando, Florida. -M

2008 Equal Justice Conference Tech Sessions

Kate and I will be participating in a few sessions at the Equal Justice Conference in Minneapolis next week. If you’re planning to attend, we’d love to have you join us.

• Tuesday, May 6th
  Distance services/technology (2:30pm-3:30pm; Presentation at Self Represented Litigants Pre-Conference)
  Presenters: Katrina Zabinski, Glenn Rawdon, Judy Meadows and Kate Bladow
• Thursday, May 8th
  Using Technology to Advance Your Mission: Challenges and Opportunities for the Up-to-Date Legal Aid Law Firm (2:00pm-3:30pm)
  Presenters: Kate Bladow, Kathleen Brockel, Rachel Medina and Alison Paul

  Using Technology to Provide Technical Legal Assistance at the State and National Level (3:45pm-5:15pm)
  Presenters: Matthew Burnett and Michael Monahan

There are a number of other great sessions on statewide websites, document assembly and legal aid technology initiatives, so be sure to check out the full agenda. If you won’t be at EJC, just tune in to techno.la next week, where Kate and I will be blogging from the conference. -M