Categories
Current Projects Work Product Tool

A2J Author for Non-Lawyers

Chicago-Kent Law School, out of its Center for Access to Justice & Technology, has started publishing A2J — Access to Justice apps.

A2J Author is a platform that lets non-tech specialists in the government, courts, and legal world to build websites & apps to let non-lawyers get more access — more easily — to the bureaucracy of the courts.

One instantiation is the A2J Guided Interview, which walks people who are representing themselves in court through the process.  It takes them through a flowchart of decisions and tells them what papers they’ll need to assemble for court documents.

You can try it out if you want to pretend you are filing an “Application to Sue or Defend as an Indigent in Cook County, Illinois”.  At the link, an online program to help you create the form to file this for free.

Categories
Current Projects Professionals' Networks + Traiing

Mobile Ethics App for Lawyers

The New York State Bar Association has released a mobile app for lawyers, judges, and other legal practitioners — for quicker advice on whether their action is ‘Ethical Under the Law.’

The app mainly provides a Search Function, to let the professional find a legal opinion on the matter at hand, to determine whether it has been judged ethical or not.

The user can search by keyword, or by the name of the opinion if they hand it — and the app will search through NY’s full case output on ethics. The app shows the matches with brief digests of the opinions, and the user can click through for full text.

Categories
Current Projects System Evaluation

311 Local Governance Apps

Many cities are using “311 Apps” on mobile devices or on Facebook to let citizens report basic city problems — potholes, graffiti, etc — to their local representatives. They can supply the details, photos, and requests directly to the city official that should be responding to them.

It also allows citizens a better way to track the progress of their request & keep statistics on the officials’ responses. People can also map where requests are to have a better sense of what areas are better served than others.

The city of San Francisco debuted a 311-Facebook app in February 2011.

New York City has its own NYC 311 mobile app.

Baltimore debuted their Mobile 311 app in August 2011.

Pittsburgh unveiled its iBurgh App in mid 2009.